Abstract
Higher socio-economic status (SES) empowers an individual to have more access to a variety of materials relevant to achievements in life than would otherwise be possible. In theory, a child’s educational attainment can be influenced by hereditary and ecological variables; parents’ achievements are prompting children to achieve, or a deliberate investment that parents undertake in their children’s welfare, all suggestive of inter-generational effect in the process. A parent’s SES may therefore play a significant role in the child’s achievements. This paper attempts to determine the relationship between a parent’s SES and a child’s educational attainment and uses South African data collected at the national level. Employing descriptive statistics and OLS regressions, an inter-generational effect of parental SES positively influencing a child’s educational attainment is established. The finding supports policies promoting education as a fundamental poverty and inequality fighting mechanism in South Africa.
Highlights
There is increasing interest in understanding the relationship between a parent’s socio-economic status (SES) and a child’s education attainment (Alhaidari et al, 2016; Stahl, Schober & Spiess, 2018)
This sample is in line with the South African population demographics consisting mostly of Africans (83.4%), followed by Coloureds (13.8%), Whites (1.8%), and lastly Indians/Asians (0.9%)
White parents on average were more educated than the African, Coloured and Indian/Asian parents, having double the education of the Africans and Coloureds
Summary
There is increasing interest in understanding the relationship between a parent’s socio-economic status (SES) and a child’s education attainment (Alhaidari et al, 2016; Stahl, Schober & Spiess, 2018). A parent’s SES affects the parent’s education involvement in a child’s life. A child’s educational attainment directly affects his/her future economic participation and wellbeing. It is in this view that promoting education attainment is one priority when targeting the socioeconomic ills in developing countries. The current study focuses on a parent’s education and employment status as constituent components of SES in assessing the child’s educational attainment
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