When National Origins Equal Socio-economic Background: The Effect of the Ethno-class Parental Background on the Education of Children Coming of Age in Switzerland

Eduardo Guichard (), Milena Chimienti, Claudio Bolzman and Jean-Marie Goff
Additional contact information
Eduardo Guichard: LIVES Swiss Centre of Expertise in Life-Course Research
Milena Chimienti: LIVES Swiss Centre of Expertise in Life-Course Research
Claudio Bolzman: LIVES Swiss Centre of Expertise in Life-Course Research
Jean-Marie Goff: LIVES Swiss Centre of Expertise in Life-Course Research

Journal of International Migration and Integration, 2024, vol. 25, issue 3, No 10, 1249-1274

Abstract: Abstract The educational outcomes of the descendants of migrants are important indicators of migrants’ incorporation into host societies and an indicator of intergenerational social im/mobility. This paper examines this relationship using data from a survey that follows a cohort of young adults, born between 1988 and 1997, who grew up in Switzerland. It looks at the relationship between the educational output of respondents and their parental migratory background, with the theoretical consideration that the family’s social capital is a starting point in the descendants’ trajectories. The paper is based on secondary data and exploratory cross-sectional quantitative analyses. The results highlight first a correspondence between migrant parents’ national origins and their socio-economic status—in other words, an ‘ethno-class’. Second, they show differences in educational outcomes between migrants’ descendants and native Swiss as well as between the migrants’ descendants themselves—which indicates a segmented incorporation process for both the first and the second generation, in confirmation of previous research. Third, results show that parental background and language region of residence are statistically significant in determining the level of education achieved by the migrants’ descendants, especially those with a low socio-economic status. Their social mobility is ‘limited’, and they remain mostly in vocational education. The paper concludes that the Swiss school system still fails to include the most unprivileged and that a glass ceiling remains for them.

Keywords: Migrants; Second generation; Education; Switzerland; Quantitative analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12134-024-01129-w Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:joimai:v:25:y:2024:i:3:d:10.1007_s12134-024-01129-w

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.springer ... tudies/journal/12134

DOI: 10.1007/s12134-024-01129-w

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of International Migration and Integration is currently edited by Lori Wilkinson

More articles in Journal of International Migration and Integration from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().