Sibling Resemblance in Educational Attainment, Occupational Prestige, and Wealth in Hungary during the Communist Regime

Abstract

In order to test the suggested decline of the family we compare sibling resemblance in the life-chances of five Hungarian cohorts born during the twentieth century. Similar studies in Germany and the Netherlands show less sibling resemblance in younger cohorts. However, one might argue that this trend towards the decline of sibling resemblance cannot be found in societies with a communist regime. A consequence of the communist regime is an increase in the importance of the family as the most important means of improving one's life-chances, because the other non-political institutions have been destroyed or are dominated by the party. The most important conclusion in this analysis of sibling resemblance in educational attainment, occupational prestige, and wealth in Hungary during the communist regime is that this resemblance did not decrease in younger birth cohorts, contrary to results from analyses on changes occurring over time in sibling resemblance in Western European societies. The slowly declining effect of father's educational attainment and wealth is less than might be predicted on the basis of theories on modernization or state socialism.