Dreaming big? Self-valuations, aspirations, networks and the private-school earnings premium

Career success: the role of teenage career aspirations, ambition value and gender in predicting adult social status and earnings

Francis Green, Samantha Parsons, Alice Sullivan and Richard Wiggins

Cambridge Journal of Economics, 2018, vol. 42, issue 3, 757-778

Abstract: An important axis of inequality in Britain is the private/state school divide. The success of private schools in Britain in delivering high academic achievements and better-paid jobs has been attributed to these schools engendering high self-evaluations, greater aspirations and social networks. Using recently repaired data on secondary school type from the 1970 British Cohort Study, we find that internal locus of control, aspirations and access to networks, but not self-esteem, are raised by private schooling. Locus of control and aspirations (but not networks or self-esteem) each have modest effects on earnings at age 42. Yet only a small part of the private school earnings premium is accounted for by all these factors. Much of the premium is due, rather, to educational attainments. This evidence suggests that strategies to strengthen self-evaluations or aspirations in state schools will contribute little on their own to the objective of greater equality or social mobility.

Keywords: Non-cognitive skills; Locus of control; Self-esteem; Pay; Private school; Aspiration; Networks; Social mobility; Inequality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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