Pub Date : 2026-01-10DOI: 10.1016/j.rssm.2026.101130
Alexander Helbig, Martin Ehlert
The article analyses the returns to further training courses among a vulnerable group: the temporary employed. We address the important question of whether non-formal further training promotes the transition to permanent work and thus helps to escape precarious employment trajectories. According to human capital theory, work-related training increases workers’ productivity and might also serve as a positive signal to employers, as signaling theory suggests. On the other hand, firms may combine training and transitions to permanent jobs for selected workers. We use data from the German Educational Panel Study and apply event history models to test these conflicting theoretical assumptions. In general, the results suggest positive effects of non-formal further training on transitions to permanent work. Especially employer-funded training shows a strong correlation with transitions within the same firm, but not with transitions to other firms. This seems to be both due to signaling of motivation and firm internal pathways that combine training and transitions. Individual, self-funded training on the other hand does not seem to affect any transition chances further indicating that firm-internal mechanisms are more important than human capital development.
{"title":"Temporary employment and further training. Does training promote the transition from temporary to permanent employment?","authors":"Alexander Helbig, Martin Ehlert","doi":"10.1016/j.rssm.2026.101130","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.rssm.2026.101130","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The article analyses the returns to further training courses among a vulnerable group: the temporary employed. We address the important question of whether non-formal further training promotes the transition to permanent work and thus helps to escape precarious employment trajectories. According to human capital theory, work-related training increases workers’ productivity and might also serve as a positive signal to employers, as signaling theory suggests. On the other hand, firms may combine training and transitions to permanent jobs for selected workers. We use data from the German Educational Panel Study and apply event history models to test these conflicting theoretical assumptions. In general, the results suggest positive effects of non-formal further training on transitions to permanent work. Especially employer-funded training shows a strong correlation with transitions within the same firm, but not with transitions to other firms. This seems to be both due to signaling of motivation and firm internal pathways that combine training and transitions. Individual, self-funded training on the other hand does not seem to affect any transition chances further indicating that firm-internal mechanisms are more important than human capital development.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47384,"journal":{"name":"Research in Social Stratification and Mobility","volume":"102 ","pages":"Article 101130"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145981359","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-09DOI: 10.1016/j.rssm.2026.101128
Jose David Lopez Blanco
This study investigates how social origin shapes second-chance educational trajectories among early school leavers in Spain. Specifically, we focus on youth who exited compulsory lower secondary education (Educación Secundaria Obligatoria, ESO) without obtaining the basic credential. Using nationally representative longitudinal data and applying sequence analysis, event history models, and multinomial logistic regressions, we examine patterns of re-engagement, timing, and final educational outcomes. The results reveal strong and persistent stratification by parental education. Young people from tertiary-educated families are more likely to return to formal education, to re-engage earlier, and to pursue more coherent and upward-oriented vocational pathways. These findings extend the theory of compensatory advantage to a highly selected and vulnerable group, showing that class-based expectations remain remarkably resilient: when academic routes become inaccessible, advantaged families redirect their children toward more feasible yet still advantageous vocational alternatives. The analysis also highlights how opportunity structures shape these trajectories. Labour-market participation delays educational return for all early school leavers, but it also attenuates class differences by reducing reliance on family background; by contrast, unemployment magnifies social-origin gaps. Finally, the expansion of Basic Vocational Training (VT) has facilitated access to second-chance education, yet its role remains ambivalent: while it provides a route to qualification, it frequently acts as a de facto dead end for disadvantaged youth, many of whom do not progress to Medium or Higher VT. Overall, the study underscores the cumulative and class-contingent nature of second-chance opportunities and demonstrates how inequalities are reproduced beyond the initial moment of school leaving.
{"title":"After dropout: Social stratification and the dynamics of educational re-entry in Spain","authors":"Jose David Lopez Blanco","doi":"10.1016/j.rssm.2026.101128","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.rssm.2026.101128","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study investigates how social origin shapes second-chance educational trajectories among early school leavers in Spain. Specifically, we focus on youth who exited <em>compulsory lower secondary education</em> (<em>Educación Secundaria Obligatoria</em>, ESO) without obtaining the basic credential. Using nationally representative longitudinal data and applying sequence analysis, event history models, and multinomial logistic regressions, we examine patterns of re-engagement, timing, and final educational outcomes. The results reveal strong and persistent stratification by parental education. Young people from tertiary-educated families are more likely to return to formal education, to re-engage earlier, and to pursue more coherent and upward-oriented vocational pathways. These findings extend the theory of compensatory advantage to a highly selected and vulnerable group, showing that class-based expectations remain remarkably resilient: when academic routes become inaccessible, advantaged families redirect their children toward more feasible yet still advantageous vocational alternatives. The analysis also highlights how opportunity structures shape these trajectories. Labour-market participation delays educational return for all early school leavers, but it also attenuates class differences by reducing reliance on family background; by contrast, unemployment magnifies social-origin gaps. Finally, the expansion of Basic Vocational Training (VT) has facilitated access to second-chance education, yet its role remains ambivalent: while it provides a route to qualification, it frequently acts as a de facto dead end for disadvantaged youth, many of whom do not progress to Medium or Higher VT. Overall, the study underscores the cumulative and class-contingent nature of second-chance opportunities and demonstrates how inequalities are reproduced beyond the initial moment of school leaving.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47384,"journal":{"name":"Research in Social Stratification and Mobility","volume":"102 ","pages":"Article 101128"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145947973","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-09DOI: 10.1016/j.rssm.2026.101129
Simon Skovgaard Jensen
A growing body of research has established that schooling either reduces, socioeconomic inequality in achievement or contributes equally to student, achievement. However, much of this work focuses on the early years of education and, primarily examines achievement outcomes, with little known about the effects in later, years of school, and other outcomes. This study employs a Differential Exposure, Approach, which exploits (conditionally) random variation in test dates, to assess the, impact of schooling on both students’ reading achievement and conscientiousness.The analysis draws on data from a biennial mandatory reading test administered across all Danish public schools (grades 2–8), as well as a self-reported measure of conscientiousness from an annual mandatory school survey (grades 0–8) linked with the Danish administrative register data. Results indicate that schooling reduces students’ self-reported conscientiousness, whether this reduction reflects true changes to students’ underlying personality or merely reflect temporary school fatigue is unclear. The negative effects were similar across SES. The results show that school exposure enhances reading achievement across all grades, though the marginal returns from an additional month of schooling diminish as students grow older. Schooling reduces the achievement gap in second grade among students within the same schools; however, this effect does not persist in later grades.
{"title":"Does schooling increase or reduce inequality in achievement and conscientiousness in Denmark?","authors":"Simon Skovgaard Jensen","doi":"10.1016/j.rssm.2026.101129","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.rssm.2026.101129","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>A growing body of research has established that schooling either reduces, socioeconomic inequality in achievement or contributes equally to student, achievement. However, much of this work focuses on the early years of education and, primarily examines achievement outcomes, with little known about the effects in later, years of school, and other outcomes. This study employs a Differential Exposure, Approach, which exploits (conditionally) random variation in test dates, to assess the, impact of schooling on both students’ reading achievement and conscientiousness.The analysis draws on data from a biennial mandatory reading test administered across all Danish public schools (grades 2–8), as well as a self-reported measure of conscientiousness from an annual mandatory school survey (grades 0–8) linked with the Danish administrative register data. Results indicate that schooling reduces students’ self-reported conscientiousness, whether this reduction reflects true changes to students’ underlying personality or merely reflect temporary school fatigue is unclear. The negative effects were similar across SES. The results show that school exposure enhances reading achievement across all grades, though the marginal returns from an additional month of schooling diminish as students grow older. Schooling reduces the achievement gap in second grade among students within the same schools; however, this effect does not persist in later grades.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47384,"journal":{"name":"Research in Social Stratification and Mobility","volume":"102 ","pages":"Article 101129"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145981358","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-02DOI: 10.1016/j.rssm.2025.101113
Ananda Martin-Caughey
Occupations are a critical theoretical concept in the social sciences, but they are difficult to operationalize and often internally heterogeneous, posing challenges for researchers. This has led some scholars to question the value of occupations in inequality and mobility research. This paper introduces the occupational similarity index (OSI) as a tool to help understand and overcome the limitations of occupation-based research. The index directly measures the internal cohesion of occupations based on previously untapped descriptions of job titles and tasks from the 2011–2023 American Community Survey, representing approximately 20 million workers. I demonstrate three applications of the OSI: improving the measurement of occupations, explaining occupation-level phenomena, and investigating the social meaning of occupations. Analyses generate several empirical findings, including: (1) occupations vary widely in internal similarity, with some occupations highly cohesive and others no more similar than a random sample of workers, (2) higher similarity is associated with lower earnings inequality, particularly among college-educated workers, and (3) in most occupations, similarity is higher within gender groups than for the occupation as a whole, suggesting substantial segregation. I make the OSI publicly available and show how measuring and studying the internal similarity of categories of work can strengthen occupation-related research for the 21st century.
职业是社会科学中一个重要的理论概念，但它们难以操作且往往内部异构，给研究人员带来了挑战。这导致一些学者质疑职业在不平等和流动性研究中的价值。本文介绍了职业相似指数（OSI）作为一种工具来帮助理解和克服基于职业的研究的局限性。该指数直接衡量职业的内部凝聚力，基于2011-2023年美国社区调查（American Community Survey）中此前未被开发的职称和任务描述，涵盖了大约2000万名工人。我展示了OSI的三个应用：改进职业测量，解释职业水平现象，以及调查职业的社会意义。分析产生了几个实证发现，包括：(1)职业在内部相似性方面差异很大，有些职业具有高度凝聚力，而其他职业与随机工人样本的相似性无关；(2)较高的相似性与较低的收入不平等有关，特别是在受过大学教育的工人中；(3)在大多数职业中，性别群体之间的相似性高于整个职业，这表明存在实质性的隔离。我公开了OSI，并展示了如何测量和研究工作类别的内部相似性可以加强21世纪与职业相关的研究。
{"title":"A similarity index for all occupations","authors":"Ananda Martin-Caughey","doi":"10.1016/j.rssm.2025.101113","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.rssm.2025.101113","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Occupations are a critical theoretical concept in the social sciences, but they are difficult to operationalize and often internally heterogeneous, posing challenges for researchers. This has led some scholars to question the value of occupations in inequality and mobility research. This paper introduces the occupational similarity index (OSI) as a tool to help understand and overcome the limitations of occupation-based research. The index directly measures the internal cohesion of occupations based on previously untapped descriptions of job titles and tasks from the 2011–2023 American Community Survey, representing approximately 20 million workers. I demonstrate three applications of the OSI: improving the measurement of occupations, explaining occupation-level phenomena, and investigating the social meaning of occupations. Analyses generate several empirical findings, including: (1) occupations vary widely in internal similarity, with some occupations highly cohesive and others no more similar than a random sample of workers, (2) higher similarity is associated with lower earnings inequality, particularly among college-educated workers, and (3) in most occupations, similarity is higher within gender groups than for the occupation as a whole, suggesting substantial segregation. I make the OSI publicly available and show how measuring and studying the internal similarity of categories of work can strengthen occupation-related research for the 21st century.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47384,"journal":{"name":"Research in Social Stratification and Mobility","volume":"101 ","pages":"Article 101113"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145749401","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-01DOI: 10.1016/j.rssm.2025.101110
Andreas Ljungström , Carina Mood
Children with foreign-born parents attend early childhood education and care (ECEC) to a lower extent than native-background children in most European countries. This enrolment gap persists even in countries with universal right to ECEC, suggesting that structural constraints alone cannot explain it. This article examines (1) whether lower ECEC enrolment in Sweden is particularly pronounced among immigrant-origin groups known to experience later educational disadvantages, and (2) whether immigrant-background children face disadvantages in ECEC quality. We use data from the Swedish pre-school register 2014–2023, linked to parents’ sociodemographic characteristics. Enrolment differences are examined using longitudinal competing risk models, considering emigration as a competing risk. ECEC quality indicators are assessed using descriptive statistics and OLS models. We find that the enrolment gap is primarily driven by lower enrolment among non-refugee migrant children who subsequently emigrate before compulsory school. The conclusion is that increasing ECEC enrolment in Sweden is unlikely to reduce later educational inequalities as those not enrolled will rarely attend Swedish schools. More generally, in contexts with high levels of temporary migration, lower ECEC participation should not automatically be seen as a risk factor for later inequality. Moreover, we find that structural indicators of ECEC quality—such as teacher density, qualifications, and turnover—are similar between immigrant- and native-background children. However, children of immigrant background attend ECEC centres with more immigrant-background peers and foreign-born teachers, which can potentially affect their language development and later outcomes.
{"title":"Inequalities in early childhood education and care by immigrant background","authors":"Andreas Ljungström , Carina Mood","doi":"10.1016/j.rssm.2025.101110","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.rssm.2025.101110","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Children with foreign-born parents attend early childhood education and care (ECEC) to a lower extent than native-background children in most European countries. This enrolment gap persists even in countries with universal right to ECEC, suggesting that structural constraints alone cannot explain it. This article examines (1) whether lower ECEC enrolment in Sweden is particularly pronounced among immigrant-origin groups known to experience later educational disadvantages, and (2) whether immigrant-background children face disadvantages in ECEC quality. We use data from the Swedish pre-school register 2014–2023, linked to parents’ sociodemographic characteristics. Enrolment differences are examined using longitudinal competing risk models, considering emigration as a competing risk. ECEC quality indicators are assessed using descriptive statistics and OLS models. We find that the enrolment gap is primarily driven by lower enrolment among non-refugee migrant children who subsequently emigrate before compulsory school. The conclusion is that increasing ECEC enrolment in Sweden is unlikely to reduce later educational inequalities as those not enrolled will rarely attend Swedish schools. More generally, in contexts with high levels of temporary migration, lower ECEC participation should not automatically be seen as a risk factor for later inequality. Moreover, we find that structural indicators of ECEC quality—such as teacher density, qualifications, and turnover—are similar between immigrant- and native-background children. However, children of immigrant background attend ECEC centres with more immigrant-background peers and foreign-born teachers, which can potentially affect their language development and later outcomes.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47384,"journal":{"name":"Research in Social Stratification and Mobility","volume":"100 ","pages":"Article 101110"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145614226","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-11-26DOI: 10.1016/j.rssm.2025.101111
Kohei Toyonaga
Although noncognitive skills and personality traits are widely recognized as crucial for understanding social inequality, their effects on labor market outcomes remain underexplored. This study investigates how employers evaluate personality traits of job seekers, focusing on Japan, where the widespread adoption of the Synthetic Personality Inventory (SPI)—a screening tool that combines cognitive ability and personality assessments—has made these traits visible from the early stages of the hiring process. Using a vignette experiment, the study finds that when personality traits are visible, employers use this information to decide whom to interview, underscoring the growing importance of personality traits in hiring decisions. However, elite companies are not necessarily more likely than non-elite companies to rely on such traits in the screening process. Instead, they continue to emphasize traditional signals such as educational background. These findings suggest that educational expansion and technological advancements may reshape how employers assess job candidates, potentially leading to an even greater emphasis on personality-based screening. Nonetheless, educational credentials remain a key prerequisite for access to the upper tiers of the labor market, regardless of the visibility of applicants’ cognitive and noncognitive skills.
{"title":"Personality traits and hiring: Exploring employer preferences through a vignette study in Japan","authors":"Kohei Toyonaga","doi":"10.1016/j.rssm.2025.101111","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.rssm.2025.101111","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Although noncognitive skills and personality traits are widely recognized as crucial for understanding social inequality, their effects on labor market outcomes remain underexplored. This study investigates how employers evaluate personality traits of job seekers, focusing on Japan, where the widespread adoption of the Synthetic Personality Inventory (SPI)—a screening tool that combines cognitive ability and personality assessments—has made these traits visible from the early stages of the hiring process. Using a vignette experiment, the study finds that when personality traits are visible, employers use this information to decide whom to interview, underscoring the growing importance of personality traits in hiring decisions. However, elite companies are not necessarily more likely than non-elite companies to rely on such traits in the screening process. Instead, they continue to emphasize traditional signals such as educational background. These findings suggest that educational expansion and technological advancements may reshape how employers assess job candidates, potentially leading to an even greater emphasis on personality-based screening. Nonetheless, educational credentials remain a key prerequisite for access to the upper tiers of the labor market, regardless of the visibility of applicants’ cognitive and noncognitive skills.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47384,"journal":{"name":"Research in Social Stratification and Mobility","volume":"101 ","pages":"Article 101111"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-11-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145693120","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-11-25DOI: 10.1016/j.rssm.2025.101112
Natalie A.E. Young , Emily Hannum
When the economic reach of the middle class grows in a country, competition within the education field may increase, pushing more middle-class families and their upper-class peers to engage in behaviors that, when agglomerated, reshape and potentially disequalize the education field. Linking data from the World Income Inequality Database, the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, and the Programme for International Student Assessment, we ask whether change in the share of income held by the middle three quintiles of the household income distribution over two decades (1998–2018) predicts change in educational opportunity structures and performance inequality. We find that rising middle-class economic power is associated with expansion of the private school sector and, in recent years, overseas tertiary education. After adjusting for time trends, we also find an association with supplementary academic tutoring. In contrast, a significant association with between-school academic tracking dissipates upon adjustment for a global increase in this practice. Importantly, not only is rising middle-class economic power linked to disequalization of educational opportunity structures, but it also exacerbates socioeconomic disparities in student performance.
{"title":"Middle-class economic power and the evolution of educational systems","authors":"Natalie A.E. Young , Emily Hannum","doi":"10.1016/j.rssm.2025.101112","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.rssm.2025.101112","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>When the economic reach of the middle class grows in a country, competition within the education field may increase, pushing more middle-class families and their upper-class peers to engage in behaviors that, when agglomerated, reshape and potentially disequalize the education field. Linking data from the World Income Inequality Database, the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, and the Programme for International Student Assessment, we ask whether change in the share of income held by the middle three quintiles of the household income distribution over two decades (1998–2018) predicts change in educational opportunity structures and performance inequality. We find that rising middle-class economic power is associated with expansion of the private school sector and, in recent years, overseas tertiary education. After adjusting for time trends, we also find an association with supplementary academic tutoring. In contrast, a significant association with between-school academic tracking dissipates upon adjustment for a global increase in this practice. Importantly, not only is rising middle-class economic power linked to disequalization of educational opportunity structures, but it also exacerbates socioeconomic disparities in student performance.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47384,"journal":{"name":"Research in Social Stratification and Mobility","volume":"101 ","pages":"Article 101112"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-11-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145693221","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-11-16DOI: 10.1016/j.rssm.2025.101109
Samuel H. Fishman , Michael Ervin
Much education research assumes that high school course-level is a key determinant of educational attainment in the United States. Yet relatively little sociological research has addressed potential confounding in the course-level-attainment association. The analysis models the course-level-attainment association using the matched sibling file from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health to estimate OLS and sibling fixed effects models. The OLS estimates reveal that taking more advanced high school mathematics and science courses is strongly correlated with higher educational attainment by young adulthood. Introduction of sibling fixed effects negates the association between science course-level and educational attainment. However, the relationship between mathematics course-level and educational attainment remains robust. The sibling model addresses between-family confounding but cannot rule out potential selection on unobserved academic ability. The results demonstrate that cross-sectional models may overstate the association between course-level with educational attainment due to between-family confounding for non-mathematics subjects.
{"title":"Does course-level really matter?: Between-family confounding in the association between high school course-level and educational attainment","authors":"Samuel H. Fishman , Michael Ervin","doi":"10.1016/j.rssm.2025.101109","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.rssm.2025.101109","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Much education research assumes that high school course-level is a key determinant of educational attainment in the United States. Yet relatively little sociological research has addressed potential confounding in the course-level-attainment association. The analysis models the course-level-attainment association using the matched sibling file from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health to estimate OLS and sibling fixed effects models. The OLS estimates reveal that taking more advanced high school mathematics and science courses is strongly correlated with higher educational attainment by young adulthood. Introduction of sibling fixed effects negates the association between science course-level and educational attainment. However, the relationship between mathematics course-level and educational attainment remains robust. The sibling model addresses between-family confounding but cannot rule out potential selection on unobserved academic ability. The results demonstrate that cross-sectional models may overstate the association between course-level with educational attainment due to between-family confounding for non-mathematics subjects.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47384,"journal":{"name":"Research in Social Stratification and Mobility","volume":"100 ","pages":"Article 101109"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145568421","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-11-14DOI: 10.1016/j.rssm.2025.101106
Christian Lohmann , Teresa Haller
Theories of language acquisition suggest that primary school constitutes a pivotal source of majority-language exposure, which is particularly important for bilingual children. During the periods of school closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, this source of language input was reduced or even entirely unavailable for several months, raising the question of how the language competences of mono- and bilingual children developed during this time. This study examines the German receptive vocabulary development of mono- and bilingual primary school children in Germany at the time of the COVID-19 school closures, using data from the Newborn Cohort of the German National Educational Panel Study from 2015 to 2021. Contrary to the theoretical expectation of exacerbated educational disparities, our findings reveal no significant widening of the existing vocabulary gap between mono- and bilingual children during the pandemic. Despite the potential for reduced German language exposure, particularly among bilingual children, vocabulary trajectories remained surprisingly stable in both groups, with bilingual children even showing signs of a slight but significant catch-up effect. Additional analyses to examine potential growing vocabulary gaps by migration background or parental education yielded no evidence of a widening achievement gap in vocabulary. These findings may be attributed to the well-documented stability of receptive vocabulary, as well as to various other factors outlined in the discussion. Our study contributes to the body of differentiated research on educational impacts of the pandemic and highlights the importance of careful examination regarding the relationship between school and competence development in the context of social inequalities.
{"title":"Loss of Vocabulary Growth during Lockdown? Stability in Language Trajectories among bi- and monolingual Children during the School Closures 2020/2021","authors":"Christian Lohmann , Teresa Haller","doi":"10.1016/j.rssm.2025.101106","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.rssm.2025.101106","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Theories of language acquisition suggest that primary school constitutes a pivotal source of majority-language exposure, which is particularly important for bilingual children. During the periods of school closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, this source of language input was reduced or even entirely unavailable for several months, raising the question of how the language competences of mono- and bilingual children developed during this time. This study examines the German receptive vocabulary development of mono- and bilingual primary school children in Germany at the time of the COVID-19 school closures, using data from the Newborn Cohort of the German National Educational Panel Study from 2015 to 2021. Contrary to the theoretical expectation of exacerbated educational disparities, our findings reveal no significant widening of the existing vocabulary gap between mono- and bilingual children during the pandemic. Despite the potential for reduced German language exposure, particularly among bilingual children, vocabulary trajectories remained surprisingly stable in both groups, with bilingual children even showing signs of a slight but significant catch-up effect. Additional analyses to examine potential growing vocabulary gaps by migration background or parental education yielded no evidence of a widening achievement gap in vocabulary. These findings may be attributed to the well-documented stability of receptive vocabulary, as well as to various other factors outlined in the discussion. Our study contributes to the body of differentiated research on educational impacts of the pandemic and highlights the importance of careful examination regarding the relationship between school and competence development in the context of social inequalities.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47384,"journal":{"name":"Research in Social Stratification and Mobility","volume":"100 ","pages":"Article 101106"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145568420","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-11-10DOI: 10.1016/j.rssm.2025.101108
Siqi Han , Siman Cai
Underutilization of one’s education at work contributes to overeducation, a phenomenon detrimental to one’s career. Anticipating a lack of gender egalitarian progress in the labor market, women may develop status anxiety and become more motivated to attain additional education to avoid the risk of downward mobility, even if excessive education may lead to overeducation. In the context of East Asia, where a lower level of gender egalitarianism and more structural barriers for women exist in the labor market than in the West, we examine the relationship between perceived gender egalitarian progress and probabilities of overeducation using a sample of young workers from the 2014/2015 East Asian Social Survey. We find that East Asian men perceive more gender egalitarian progress in the labor market than East Asian women; women’s perceived egalitarian progress is related to a reduced risk of overeducation in China and Taiwan but not Japan. Our research highlights how education serves as a strategy for status maintenance, particularly in contexts where gender equality has made limited progress, and how perceived gender egalitarian progress can protect women from overeducation.
{"title":"Perceived gender egalitarian progress in the labor market and overeducation in China, Japan, and Taiwan","authors":"Siqi Han , Siman Cai","doi":"10.1016/j.rssm.2025.101108","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.rssm.2025.101108","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Underutilization of one’s education at work contributes to overeducation, a phenomenon detrimental to one’s career. Anticipating a lack of gender egalitarian progress in the labor market, women may develop status anxiety and become more motivated to attain additional education to avoid the risk of downward mobility, even if excessive education may lead to overeducation. In the context of East Asia, where a lower level of gender egalitarianism and more structural barriers for women exist in the labor market than in the West, we examine the relationship between perceived gender egalitarian progress and probabilities of overeducation using a sample of young workers from the 2014/2015 East Asian Social Survey. We find that East Asian men perceive more gender egalitarian progress in the labor market than East Asian women; women’s perceived egalitarian progress is related to a reduced risk of overeducation in China and Taiwan but not Japan. Our research highlights how education serves as a strategy for status maintenance, particularly in contexts where gender equality has made limited progress, and how perceived gender egalitarian progress can protect women from overeducation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47384,"journal":{"name":"Research in Social Stratification and Mobility","volume":"100 ","pages":"Article 101108"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-11-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145568422","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：
京公网安备 11010802042870号