Intergenerational Educational Persistence in Europe

Primarily using data from the 2010 European Social Survey, we analyze intergenerational educational persistence in 20 European countries, studying cross-country and cross-cluster differences in intergenerational mobility; the role of gender in determining educational persistence across generations; and changes in the degree of intergenerational persistence over time. We find that persistence is highest in the Southern and Eastern European countries, and lowest in the Nordic countries. While intergenerational persistence in the Nordic and Southern countries has declined over time, it has remained relatively steady in the rest of Europe. Further, we find evidence of differences in intergenerational persistence by gender, with mothers’ education being a stronger determinant of daughters’ (instead of sons’) education and fathers’ education a stronger determinant of the education of their sons. Finally we see that for most clusters differences over time are largely driven by increasing mobility for younger women.