Earnings expectations of “First-in Family” university students and their role for major choice

Katharina Adler, Fabian Kosse, Markus Nagler and Johannes Rincke

Labour Economics, 2025, vol. 95, issue C

Abstract: How do students’ earnings expectations differ by being the first in their family to attend university (FiF) and how do they affect field of study choice? We leverage unique survey and administrative data to document sizable gaps in expected earnings between FiF and non-FiF students. Our data can explain two-thirds of this gap, with the largest share attributable to field of study choice. We show that FiF students sort less into study fields based on their earnings expectations. Investigating potential explanations, we find that in high-earning fields, FiF students expect lower own ability and worse non-wage amenities than non-FiF students.

Keywords: Higher education; First in family; Labor market expectations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927537125000673
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:labeco:v:95:y:2025:i:c:s0927537125000673

DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2025.102743

Access Statistics for this article

Labour Economics is currently edited by A. Ichino

More articles in Labour Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().