Intergenerational Mobility in Europe: the Role of Mothers and Gender Differences.

Abstract

As human capital is a strong predictor of lifetime income and schooling is deemed as the most powerful equalizer, we enquire on whether in Europe education has been really accessible to all. In particular, we want to understand whether socioeconomic background has been a discriminating factor for educational choices. To do so, we analyse, using data from the Survey on Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), the level of persistency of educational attainments across generations. Furthermore, as women have typically been neglected by economic scholars in this field, we assess the contribution of gender differences to the intergenerational mobility of education and try to model parental influence in different ways. In doing so, we are contributing to the ongoing methodological debate on the inclusion of mothers in intergenerational mobility models.