Different systems, same inequalities? Post-compulsory education and young adults’ literacy in 18 OECD countries

Camilla Borgna

EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, 2017, vol. 27, issue 4, 332-345

Abstract: Education is increasingly seen as a substitute for social policy, but opportunities for skill development vary by social background and educational institutions are not neutral in this respect. While previous research has extensively examined how schooling affects skills distribution, the role of post-compulsory education has been long overlooked. Using data from the 2011/2012 Programme for International Assessment of Adult Competences, this article investigates how selected features of upper secondary and tertiary education are connected to the social stratification of young adults’ literacy skills in 18 OECD countries. First, I use individual-level regressions to assess the extent to which disparities in the skills of 24- to 29-year-old individuals are explained by parental education in each country. Second, I apply fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis across countries to investigate under which institutional conditions the social stratification of young adults’ literacy skills is most severe. The findings point to the existence of functionally equivalent education regimes: young adults face severe disparities not only in socially selective higher education systems but also in relatively open systems characterized by institutional differentiation; moreover, disparities arising during compulsory schooling are consequential for the skill distribution of young adults, underscoring the importance of a life-course approach to education policies.

Keywords: educational inequalities; educational systems; fuzzy sets; higher education; QCA; vocational training (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/182570/1/f ... orgna-Systems-v3.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:espost:182570

DOI: 10.1177/0958928717719197

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters from ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().