Social Mobility in Germany

Majed Dodin, Sebastian Findeisen, Lukas Henkel, Dominik Sachs and Paul Schüle

No 4, Working Papers from University of Konstanz, Cluster of Excellence "The Politics of Inequality. Perceptions, Participation and Policies"

Abstract: We characterize intergenerational social mobility in Germany using census data on the educational attainment of 526,000 children and their parents' earnings. Our measure of educational attainment is the A-Level degree, a requirement for access to university and the most important qualification in the German education system. On average, a 10 percentile increase in the parental income rank is associated with a 5.2 percentage point increase in the probability to obtain an A-Level. This parental income gradient has not changed for the birth cohorts from 1980 to 1996, despite a large-scale policy of expanding upper secondary education in Germany. At the regional level, there exists substantial variation in mobility estimates. Place effects, rather than sorting of households into different regions, seem to account for most of these geographical differences. Mobile regions are, among other aspects, characterized by high school quality and enhanced possibilities to obtain an A-Level degree in vocational schools.

Keywords: Intergenerational Mobility; Educational Attainment; Local Labor Markets (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I24 J62 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-eur, nep-isf, nep-lab and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Social mobility in Germany (2024)
Working Paper: Social Mobility in Germany (2021)
Working Paper: Social Mobility in Germany (2021)
Working Paper: Social Mobility in Germany (2021)
Working Paper: Social Mobility in Germany (2021)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:cexwps:04

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