 The rising influence of family background on early school performanceSimen Markussen and Knut Røed () Economics of Education Review, 2023, vol. 97, issue C Abstract: We use administrative data from Norway to examine recent trends in the association between parents’ prime age earnings rank and offspring's educational performance rank by age 15/16. We show that the intergenerational correlation between these two ranks has increased over the past decades, and that offspring from economically disadvantaged families have fallen behind. This has happened despite public policies contributing to leveling the playing field. We show that the expansion of universal childcare and, more recently, the increased teacher-pupil ratio in compulsory school, have disproportionally benefited lower class offspring. The rising influence of parents’ earnings rank can partly be explained by a strengthened intragenerational association between earnings rank and education among parents, as educational achievement has an inheritable component. Yet a considerable unexplained rise in the influence of family background remains, consistent with evidence pointing toward increased parental involvement in children's lives, plausibly in response to higher returns to education. Keywords: Intergenerational mobility; Achievement gaps; Parental influence; Meritocracy; GPA (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:97:y:2023:i:c:s0272775723001383 DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2023.102491 Access Statistics for this article Economics of Education Review is currently edited by E. Cohn More articles in Economics of Education Review from Elsevier |
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