Educational Pathways and their Role in Occupational and Class Attainment in Czech Society

This article introduces a new approach to the study of the association between education and socio-economic outcomes in the Czech Republic: educational pathways, which are the primary channels of study involving at least two educational transitions with qualitatively different tracks. Based on Czech Household Panel Study data, I operationalise Czech educational pathways between secondary and tertiary education and examine the role of eight different educational paths on ESeC-derived social classes, contrasted by parental education, gender, and birth cohort. Based on the ordered logit model, I compute the predicted probability that specific educational pathways would lead to a specific class status. I find that the educational pathway approach yields distinct insights about the education-class link that would be masked had I studied only highest level of education attained. The educational pathway approach could, therefore, be a fruitful way to approach other areas of Czech social stratification research.