IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/zbw/espost/311279.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Explaining the attainment of the second-generation: When does parental relative education matter?

Author

Listed:
  • Ferrara, Alessandro
  • Luthra, Renee

Abstract

How can we understand unexplained variation in the educational outcomes of the children of immigrants? A growing literature posits that standard educational transmission models fail to explain national origin differences in attainment because they ignore immigrant selectivity – the degree to which immigrants differ from non-migrants in their sending countries. The immigrant selectivity hypothesis is usually tested using indicators of parents’ relative or “contextual” educational attainment, measuring their rank in the educational attainment distribution of their country of origin. However, using this proxy, current support for the hypothesis is mixed. We outline three conditions for the use of educational selectivity as a proxy for relative social positioning among the children of immigrants. We test our conditions using an adult and a youth sample from a large household panel survey in the UK. We supplement our analyses by exploring relative education data from prior research on Italy, France and the United States. Triangulating these varied sources, we illustrate cases when our three conditions do and do not hold, providing evidence from the UK and other contexts. We provide guidelines on the use of relative education as a measure of relative social standing in cross-national research as well as an assessment of the immigrant selectivity hypothesis in explaining second-generation educational outcomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Ferrara, Alessandro & Luthra, Renee, 2024. "Explaining the attainment of the second-generation: When does parental relative education matter?," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 120, pages 1-18.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:311279
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2024.103016
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/311279/1/Full-text-article-Ferrara-Luthra-Explaining-the-attainment.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2024.103016?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:sae:mrxval:v:54:y:2020:i:3:p:765-795 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Michèle V. K. Belot & Timothy J. Hatton, 2012. "Immigrant Selection in the OECD," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 114(4), pages 1105-1128, December.
    3. Luthra, Renee Reichl & Platt, Lucinda, 2023. "Do immigrants benefit from selection? Migrant educational selectivity and its association with social networks, skills and health," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 118629, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. repec:sae:mrxval:v:39:y:2005:i:4:p:841-871 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Barro, Robert J. & Lee, Jong Wha, 2013. "A new data set of educational attainment in the world, 1950–2010," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 184-198.
    6. repec:sae:mrxval:v:45:y:2011:i:2:p:348-385 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. repec:sae:mrxval:v:52:y:2018:i:3:p:898-928 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Anica Bowe, 2020. "The Immigrant Paradox Among the UK’s Adolescents: Data from the LSYPE 2004–2010 Project," Journal of International Migration and Integration, Springer, vol. 21(4), pages 1205-1224, December.
    9. Renee Luthra & Thomas Soehl, 2015. "From Parent to Child? Transmission of Educational Attainment Within Immigrant Families: Methodological Considerations," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 52(2), pages 543-567, April.
    10. Herman G. van de Werfhorst & Anthony Heath, 2019. "Selectivity of Migration and the Educational Disadvantages of Second-Generation Immigrants in Ten Host Societies," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 35(2), pages 347-378, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Luthra, Renee Reichl & Platt, Lucinda, 2023. "Do immigrants benefit from selection? Migrant educational selectivity and its association with social networks, skills and health," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 118629, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Daniel Meierrieks & Laura Renner, 2017. "Stymied ambition: does a lack of economic freedom lead to migration?," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 30(3), pages 977-1005, July.
    3. Frédéric Docquier & Riccardo Turati & Jérôme Valette & Chrysovalantis Vasilakis, 2020. "Birthplace diversity and economic growth: evidence from the US states in the Post-World War II period [Cultural diversity and economic growth: evidence from the US during the age of mass migration]," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 20(2), pages 321-354.
    4. Michal BURZYŃSKI & Christoph DEUSTER & Frédéric DOCQUIER, 2018. "The Geography of Talent: Development Implications and Long-Run Prospects," Working Papers P221, FERDI.
    5. Krieger, Tim & Renner, Laura & Ruhose, Jens, 2018. "Long-term relatedness between countries and international migrant selection," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 35-54.
    6. Xiaoning Huang, 2023. "Immigrant Skill Selection: A Case Study of South Africa and the USA," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 14(4), pages 3799-3817, December.
    7. Elisa Brini & Paolo Barbieri & Anna Zamberlan, 2022. "Culture portability from origin to destination country: The gender division of domestic work among migrants in Italy," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 47(20), pages 577-614.
    8. Frédéric Docquier & Joël Machado, 2017. "Income Disparities, Population and Migration Flows Over the Twenty First Century," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 3(2), pages 125-149, July.
    9. Burzynski, Michal & Deuster, Christoph & Docquier, Frédéric, 2020. "Geography of skills and global inequality," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    10. Ariu, Andrea & Docquier, Frédéric & Squicciarini, Mara P., 2016. "Governance quality and net migration flows," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 238-248.
    11. Dmytro Vikhrov, 2017. "Immigration policy index," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 25(1), pages 3-46, January.
    12. Frédéric Docquier & Riccardo Turati & Jérôme Valette & Chrysovalantis Vasilakis, 2016. "Multiculturalism and Growth: Skill-Specific Evidence from the Post-World War II Period," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2016028, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    13. Bredtmann, Julia & Otten, Sebastian, 2013. "The Role of Source- and Host-Country Characteristics in Female Immigrant Labor Supply," MPRA Paper 44544, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Marco Delogu & Frédéric Docquier & Joël Machado, 2018. "Globalizing labor and the world economy: the role of human capital," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 223-258, June.
    15. Riccardo Turati, 2021. "Do you want to migrate to the United States? Migration intentions and Cultural Traits in Latin America," Working Papers wpdea2101, Department of Applied Economics at Universitat Autonoma of Barcelona.
    16. Renner, Laura & Krieger, Tim & Ruhose, Jens, 2014. "Culture, Selection, and International Migration," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100434, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    17. Tim Krieger & Laura Renner & Jens Ruhose, 2015. "Genetic Distance and International Migrant Selection," CESifo Working Paper Series 5453, CESifo.
    18. Grytten, Jostein & Skau, Irene & Sørensen, Rune, 2024. "Fertility and immigration: Do immigrant mothers hand down their fertility pattern to the next generation? Evidence from Norway," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    19. Cai, Jie & Stoyanov, Andrey, 2023. "Progressive income tax and comparative advantage in trade," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    20. Lo Turco, Alessia & Maggioni, Daniela & Zazzaro, Alberto, 2019. "Financial dependence and growth: The role of input-output linkages," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 308-328.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:311279. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zbwkide.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.