Institutional change and parental compensation in intergenerational attainment

Does Increasing the Minimum School-Leaving Age Affect the Intergenerational Transmission of Education? Evidence from Four European Countries

Reforms in the minimum school-leaving age are candidates for policies that affect the intergenerational transmission of education. I propose that the societal contexts in which these reforms occur may moderate their effects on educational mobility. To test this hypothesis, I estimate the cross-country variation in the effects of increases in the minimum school-leaving age on educational mobility in four European countries. I employ a regression discontinuity design and data from the European Social Survey and the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe on Austria, Denmark, France, and the Netherlands. The findings provide no evidence to the hypothesis that the reforms in the minimum school-leaving age changed the association between the education of parents and the education of their children in any of the four countries. These findings are robust to measuring educational attainment in a multitude of ways, and they do not vary between men and women. The results are at odds with rational choice theories that expect reforms in the minimum school-leaving age to increase educational mobility.

Unravelling the relationship between parental resources and disability pension in young adulthood

A vast literature exists on the relationship between family background and health outcomes. However, there is a shortage of evidence on the relationship between parental resources and offsprings' disability pension, a severe form of general poor health and functionability. This article analyses how parental income and education are associated with offsprings' disability pension in young adulthood (19-27 years) among 1980-1985 birth cohorts using Finnish register data. The results of discrete-time event history analysis demonstrate that parental income and education have contrasting impacts. High parental income is found to decrease, and parental education to increase, the probability of offspring having disability pension, although mainly among offspring with compulsory education. Further, young adults with high parental resources are better off two years after their first disability pension. We conclude that the influence of parental resources operates via offsprings' educational attainment but also has divergent direct impacts on offsprings' disability pension.

Parental Support and Youth Occupational Attainment: Help or Hindrance?

Although several concerns surround the transition to adulthood and youth increasingly rely on parental support, our knowledge about the implications of parental support for youth development and transition to adulthood is limited. This study fills this gap by conceptualizing development within a life course perspective that links social inequality and early life course transitions. It draws on a subsample of youth observed between age 18 and 28 from the Transition to Adulthood supplement of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics 2005-2015 (N = 7,542; 53% female, 51.3% white). Mixed-effects models reveal that the more direct financial transfers youth receive, the higher their occupational status. Yet, indirect financial support parents offer through co-residence shows the opposite pattern. Among youth receiving monetary transfers, college graduates have particularly high occupational status; however, among youth living with their parents, college graduates have the lowest occupational status. Although different types of parental support may equally act as safety nets, their divergent implications for youths' occupational attainment raise concerns about the reproduction and possible intensification of inequality during this developmental stage.