Schooling, Income and Social Position in Different Countries

Abstract

This article consists of the exposition of part of the research results focused on the examination of the relations between economic valorization of formal education and social position. The objective of this research is to take the set of social position indicators with information available in official statistics with compatible variables between different countries. Besides the compatibility of the pertinent variables, another inclusion criterion is the existence of information available in continuous values for the amount of income and the number of years of study. Based on this, a set of 13 countries were included (under central and peripheral conditions). Differences in the economic valuation of the amount of education are measured particularly by comparing the average income and years of education for each category of variables under consideration. Of the set of indicators retained with information available from sources, a first block refers more directly to variables linked to occupational categories, status in employment and educational level, in addition to the amount of income. A second block of indicators is more directly linked to the position in center / periphery relations and the conditions of social integration. Finally, a third block of indicators focuses on what is generally considered as social capital. In the present article, due to the lack of space for the total results to be exposed, the focus is on the first set of indicators, relative amount of income, occupational categories, status in employment and educational level Despite the impossibility of exposing the totality of the results in a single article, regarding the included indicators, they are very strong and systematic. The “plus” in valuing formal education is extremely differentiated, with the respective positions of the always analogous or similar categories. This covers either occupational categories or groupings or status in employment and educational attainment. Despite the inclusion of countries in central and peripheral conditions and differences in outcomes, the relative positions of the categories with the highest “plus” in.