The Educational Attainment of the Children of the Danish ‘Guest Worker’ Immigrants

Vibeke Jakobsen () and Nina Smith
Additional contact information
Vibeke Jakobsen: VIVE - The Danish Centre for Applied Social Science

No 749, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper analyses the educational attainment of young first generation immigrants in Denmark who are children of the ‘guest workers’ who immigrated from Turkey, Pakistan and Ex-Yugoslavia in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Beside the traditional intergenerational transmission mechanism, we analyse potential immigrant-specific factors as language proficiency, attending mother-tongue courses and expectations concerning out or return migration from Denmark. The results show that intergenerational transmission effects are strong among ‘guest worker’ immigrants, especially among men. Other important factors are Danish language proficiency, age at first marriage and a number variables reflecting parents’ and own attitudes concerning education, marriage and family. However, the ‘guest worker’ immigrants are not a homogenous group. The analyses reveal large differences between Turkish, Pakistani and Ex-Yugoslavian ‘guest workers’ with respect to their educational success and the factors behind.

Keywords: intergenerational transmission; ‘guest worker’ immigrants; education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 J61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 45 pages
Date: 2003-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eec and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Published - published in: Danish Economic Journal, 2006, 144 (2), 18-42

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp749.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The educational attainment of the children of the Danish »guest worker« immigrants (2006)
Working Paper: The educational attainment of the children of the Danish ‘guest worker’ immigrants (2003)
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:iza:izadps:dp749

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().