Fostering Equality of Opportunity? Compulsory Schooling Reform and Social Mobility in Germany

Abstract

There is an ongoing debate in the field of social mobility research about whether intergenerational social mobility can be increased by way of education policy. However, evidence on the effects of specific education policies on social mobility continues to be scarce. This article analyses the effect of one specific policy reform, the extension of compulsory schooling in Germany, which has been argued to have led to a decrease in educational inequality and an increase in social mobility. Using a differencein-difference design, the article exploits the variation in the timing of the reform across German states to estimate the reform effect on the educational attainment and labour market chances of individuals from different social class backgrounds. We find that the reform resulted in a substantial narrowing of the gap in educational attainment between different social origin groups. This decline in educational inequality further translated into a reduction in the inequality in labour market chances between people from different social class backgrounds, thus increasing intergenerational social mobility. Our findings suggest that educational policy can lead to substantial increases in intergenerational social mobility, which may have been overlooked in past research on societal-level, long-run trends in social mobility.

The Effect of the Post-Socialist Transition on Inequality of Educational Opportunity: Evidence from German Unification

“…Last, our findings speak forcefully to the debate in social stratification research on the role of institutional change in the intergenerational transmission of inequality (Blossfeld and Shavit, 1993;Goldthorpe, 2016;Betthäuser, 2017;Esping-Andersen and Wagner, 2012). The tenor of much of the literature on this issue has been that educational inequality is highly persistent across generations and largely immune to efforts to decrease IEO by way of policy reforms.…”

“…We measure parents' social class position using a four-category version of the ESeC schema, differentiating between (1) the unskilled working class, (2) the skilled working class, (3) the intermediate class and (4) the salariat. We differentiate between individuals from unskilled and skilled working-class backgrounds, as it has been shown that there is a substantial difference in the mean educational attainment between these two groups in Germany (Betthäuser, 2017). However, given the ideological agenda of the GDR, we expect its reforms to have affected the educational attainment of individuals from working-class backgrounds at large.…”

“…the former GDR) after unification. Given the known class-gradient in lower-secondary attainment in West Germany (Blossfeld, 1993;Betthäuser, 2017), the re-introduction of the lower-secondary school track and the lower-secondary qualification (Hauptschulabschluss) is likely to have increased the proportion of children from working-class backgrounds who leave school before obtaining a mid-secondary qualification, thus increasing IEO at the mid-secondary level. Similarly, the abolition of positive discrimination in favour of working-class youth and the removal of the vocational route to obtaining the Abitur can be expected to have led to an increase in IEO at the upper-secondary and tertiary level.…”

Left behind? Over-time change in the social mobility of children from unskilled working-class backgrounds in Germany

“…However, while these trends may account for the observed increase in overall social fluidity during the 20th century, it is not clear whether they also led to an increase in the mobility chances of individuals from unskilled working-class backgrounds. With the notable exception of an extension of compulsory schooling in all German states ( Bundesländer ) during the two decades following World War II (see Betthäuser, 2018; Müller and Haun, 1994), there have been few reforms of the German education system, which can be expected to have substantially reduced the educational inequality between this group and people from more advantaged backgrounds (see, Bukodi et al, 2018, Neugebauer et al, 2013; Schneider, 2006). Moreover, given the generally low level of educational attainment of people from disadvantaged backgrounds (Shavit and Blossfeld, 1993), it is questionable whether the trend of educational expansion in Germany has increased the educational attainment of this group to an extent that would have given rise to a weakening of the effect of their parental class background on their labour market chances.…”

Identifying the Configuration Differences of Primary Schools with Different Administrative Affiliations in China

“…The balanced development of education facilities is the common goal pursued by various countries. Previous research on the inequity of education services has mainly focused on different income classes, education reform, accessibility, and facility maintenance and investment [22][23][24][25]. There are also some studies focusing on school performance issues [26].…”