Elsevier

Economics Letters

Volume 91, Issue 1, April 2006, Pages 90-97
Economics Letters

Timing of school tracking as a determinant of intergenerational transmission of education

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2005.11.003Get rights and content

Abstract

We test with Swiss data whether intergenerational educational mobility is affected by the time at which pupils are first streamed in secondary school. Late tracking significantly affects mobility and reduces the relative advantage of children of better educated parents.

Introduction

Educational mobility is commonly measured as the correlation between parent and child education. International evidence shows vast differences in mobility across countries (OECD, 2003) and yet we know little about its determinants. One frequently discussed mechanism is that the time at which pupils are separated based on ability in homogeneous groups or tracks affects mobility: if such a segregation1 takes place at early ages or low grades, pupils' ability can only be measured with substantial noise and parental background and expectations may dominate the tracking decision (OECD, 2003, Brunello et al., 2004, Lauer, 2003, Ammermüller, 2004).

To our knowledge, the correlation between the timing of first tracking and the extent of social mobility have not been investigated empirically so far for a given institutional framework. OECD (2003, p. 221) tabulates cross-country evidence. However, due to institutional differences, international data hardly allow to identify the true effect of the timing of tracking on educational mobility.

We investigate this effect based on data from a single country, Switzerland. The Swiss educational system is organized at the level of 26 cantons. Probably for historical reasons, the cantonal education systems differ with respect to the age of first enrollment and the grade at which students are tracked. While further minor institutional details vary across cantons (e.g. timing of language classes, class sizes), the overall institutional framework is similar. If we assume that there are no unobserved differences between cantons that are correlated with the timing of tracking, we can empirically identify the causal effect of the timing of tracking on educational mobility.

Section snippets

Data and empirical approach

We apply cross-sectional data from the 2000 Swiss population census. The dependent variable indicates youths' type of secondary training at age 17 in categories of high (college-bound), medium (vocational) and low (only mandatory training) levels of secondary schooling (for details, see Bauer and Riphahn, 2004). We similarly categorize parental education.2

Findings

The coefficients and marginal effects based on the estimation results using the Grade 1 indicator are exemplarily presented in Table 3. The results are similar when using the other two indicators. In all three cases, the eight coefficients (d) of the interaction terms were jointly statistically significant (at least) at the 5% level. Thus, the correlation between parent and child education appears to be significantly modified by the timing of tracking.

Table 4 describes predicted probabilities

Conclusion

This is the first test of whether the timing of tracking affects educational mobility within a national institutional framework. We take advantage of a heterogeneity in educational systems across Swiss cantons. Our approach is akin to a difference-in-difference estimation and identifies the causal effect of the timing of tracking if there are no unobservable determinants of differences in social mobility between the cantons. Time of tracking has a significant effect on educational mobility.

References (7)

There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

Cited by (99)

  • Impacts of education policies on intergenerational education mobility in China

    2019, China Economic Review
    Citation Excerpt :

    As Parman (2011) claimed, the educational institutions and intergenerational mobility are closely related, and the access to schools is a major determinant of a child's future success. However, the empirical test of the effect of education policies on intergenerational education mobility is still in its infancy, and most of the existing studies on this question focused on developed countries (Bauer & Riphahn, 2006; Blanden & Machin, 2013; Pekkarinen, Uusitalo, & Kerr, 2009). In this paper, we use the CHIP 2013 dataset to investigate the effects of two important education policies on intergenerational education mobility as well as upward mobility in China, including the Compulsory Education Law (CEL) implemented in 1986 and college expansion policy (CEP) started from 1999.

  • Are Business and Economics Alike?

    2023, Italian Economic Journal
View all citing articles on Scopus
View full text