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The Persistence of Persistent Inequality – A

Review

RC28 Spring meeting, Brmo May 2006

Yossi ShavitMeir YaishEyal Bar Haim

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Mare’s Model of Educational Transitions

Mare’s model has served as an industry standard in research on educational stratification.

Mare designed his model to yield margin-free estimates of educational stratification.

Mare’s sought to disentangle two confounded aspects of educational stratification Dispersion. Stratification (social selection)

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A Reminder

s

isjsjij

ij xp

p)

1ln(

The association between X and the progression from educational level j-1 to j.

The model is written as:

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– The probability that person i will continue from educational level j-1 to level j

ijiss

jsjij eXbbp 0

)1( ijijjsjs ppb

Mare shows that

The association between X and the progression from educational level j-1 to j.

In words, the additive linear effect of X on pij is a function of and of educational expansion.

• Note that bjs is at a maximum for p=0.5

• Therefore, an expansion of j can reduce or increase bjs even if remains stable.

ijP

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Following Mare

Despite the importance of educational expansion in the public and theoretical debate concerning IEO, it is usually ignored by empirical research.

Rather, it is treated as a nuisance to be adjusted for.

NOTE: Mare himself paid a great deal of attention to expansion.

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Persistent Inequality? Mare’s model has been replicated in a large

number of studies (including Shavit & Blossfeld).

Main Findings: Declining effects, over time, of social

origins at lower educational transitions, Stability/increasing effects of origins on

the odds of higher transition points I.E., Persistent Inequality (PI)

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Challenges to Mare’s Model

Main Challenge: PI is due to dynamic sample selection. SES effects are stable (or even increase)

over time because the risk-set of transitions grow ever more heterogeneous

Secondary Challenges: Myopia (C&H) Educational choices are rarely binary (B&J)

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Log Linear Alternatives to Mare’s Model

These models discard the notion of educational transitions.

Estimates of the association between origins and educational attainment is not biased by dynamic sample selection.

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Log Linear Findings RE: PI

Jonsson, Mills and Müller (1996): Sweden and Germany:

The association between class and education declined slightly over time (6% in the first half of 20th Century)

Britain - no change.

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Log Linear Findings II

Breen, Luijkx, Müller and Pollak, (2005): The origin-education association

declined significantly across cohorts. Importantly however, the decline was

not linear Pronounced in the post-WWII years; Persistence since then.

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Log Linear Findings III

Vallet (2004): In France, too, the decline in the origin –

education association is not linear in time.

It increased for cohorts born between 1908 and the late 1920s;

Declined sharply for those born between the late-1930s and the late 1940s, and

declined weakly thereafter.

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Log Linear Findings IV

Barone (2006): In Italy the origin-education association

declined for cohorts born during the 1930s and 1940s and increased thereafter.

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Persistent Inequality?

Yes! In a weak version: Modest declines in IEO. Much of the decline seems to have

occurred during, or soon after WWII

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Expansion and IEO

Expansion is a very common educational policy.

Can expansion reduce IEO? The answer depends on how we define IEO.

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Expansion (cont.)

As seen earlier, under the linear probability model, expansion can reduce IEO once the attainment probability has exceeded 0.5.

However, most RC28 research on IEO can not inform policy because it employs margin-free models (either transition or log-linear models).

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Examples and Critique of Research on Expansion

and IEO

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Raftery and Hout (1993):

A quasi-experimental design:

IEO Before IEO After

Educational reform that expanded

participation

Findings: IEO decreased at the lower levels of education.

Critique: Changes in IEO, or lack thereof, may have resulted from factors other than educational expansion.

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Ganzeboom, Treiman and Reijkin (2003)

Multi-level linear analysis 30 countries Units of analysis: cohort x country combinations. Expansion is measured as average school years in

each cohort x country combination. Findings: negative effect of “expansion” on

the correlation between socio-economic background and educational attainment.

Critique: Expansion should be measured as a process rather than in cross-section

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Arum, Gamoran and Shavit (2007)

15 Countries Expansion measured longitudinally (process). Saturation measured in cross-section. AGS estimate effects of expansion and saturation

on effects of origins on the log odds of transitions from secondary to higher education.

Findings: Saturation reduces IEO in transition to higher education, expansion neither enhances nor reduces IEO.

Critique: AGS’s analysis is an informal meta-analysis. No formal tests are employed

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New Research: Bar-Haim, Shavit and Ayalon.

Work in progress: “Educational Expansion and Inequality of Educational Opportunity.” Submitted to the Montreal Meeting of RC28.

ISSP Data 24 countries 1992, 1993, 1999 Multi-level Logistic Regression

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Individual-Level Variables Father’s education Gender Birth Cohort (1940s, 1950s).

Country-Level Variables Expansion is defined as the proportionate

change, between cohorts, in % attending higher education.

Saturation is a dummy representing 80+% higher education among children in the first cohort whose fathers were highly educated themselves.

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Intercept -3.27*(0.22)

Mean Father Education X Cohort 1950-59

0.01(0.16)

Expansion -0.25(0.20)

Saturation 0.89*(0.26)

Male 0.18*(0.05)

Cohort 1950-59 0.28*(0.10)

Father Education 0.51*(0.03)

Father Education X Cohort 1950-59

Intercept 0.01(0.02)

Expansion 0.21*(0.03)

Saturation -0.05*(0.01)

Male X Cohort 1950-59 -0.16*(0.05)

Table1: Coefficients (standard errors), of multi-level logistic regression model on higher education

* p<0.05

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Summary of Results:

IEO is defined as the effect of father’s education on the log odds of entering higher education: Expansion enhances IEO between

cohorts. Saturation reduces IEO between cohorts.

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Summary Persistent Inequality persists, albeit in a

weak version: Declining IEO at lower levels (saturation

effects) Declining IEO during mid-century. PI otherwise.

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Question: Is there a distinct War (WWII) effect (e.g., Sorokin)?

Could the decline have been due to the resumption of normality after the War rather than to long term modernization processes?

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Can Policy Affect IEO? Effective egalitarian educational policy

increases participation (expansion). However, much of our collective work

ignores expansion and thus, misses an important beneficial outcome.

Let’s bring expansion back into our models.