Choosing a High School Track: The Role of Classmates Parental Occupations

Filippo Da Re ()
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Filippo Da Re: University of Padova

No 320, "Marco Fanno" Working Papers from Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche "Marco Fanno"

Abstract: This paper examines how the parental occupations of grademates influence students’ choice to enrol in an academic high school track. Exploiting variation in the distribution of parental occupations across classes within Italian middle school cohorts, I find that a one standard deviation increase in the share of classmates with prestigious (humble) parental occupations raises (lowers) the likelihood of academic track enrolment by 2 percentage points. Instrumental variable estimates suggest this effect is not driven by individual or peer ability, indicating a direct influence of peer networks. The negative impact of peers from disadvantaged backgrounds is particularly pronounced for low-SES students and in provinces with low social mobility. The effect is concentrated in the most prestigious academic curricula, pointing to the role of social prestige and networks. Notably, immigrant students do not enrol in the academic track regardless of their peers.

Keywords: High school track choice; peer effects; occupations. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 58 pages
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