Inequality of educational opportunities and the role of learning intensity

Sebastian Camarero Garcia

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Over the 2000s, many federal states in Germany shortened the duration of secondary school by one year while keeping the curriculum unchanged. The quasi-experimental variation arising from the staggered introduction of this reform allows me to identify the causal effect of increased learning intensity, the ratio of curricular content covered per year, on Inequality of Educational Opportunity (IEOp), the share in educational outcome variance explained by predetermined circumstances beyond a student's control. Findings show that higher learning intensity aggravated IEOp due to parental resources becoming more important through support opportunities like private tuition, adapting to an intensified educational process. The effect is stronger for mathematics/science than for reading, implying the existence of subject-dependent curricular flexibilities. My findings underscore the importance of accounting for distributional consequences when evaluating reforms aimed at increasing educational efficiency and point to the role of learning intensity for explaining changes in educational opportunities influencing social mobility.

Keywords: compulsory education; educational efficiency; human capital; inequality of opportunity; school reform; social mobility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 H75 I28 J24 J62 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 18 pages
Date: 2022-01-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published in Labour Economics, 1, January, 2022, 74. ISSN: 0927-5371

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Related works:
Journal Article: Inequality of Educational Opportunities and the Role of Learning Intensity (2022)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:113365

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