Abstract
Over the last decades, various policies at national and local levels have been implemented to widen participation in higher education (HE) in Scotland and more widely in the UK. Despite this, the acquisition of a HE qualification is still largely determined by the family in which individuals are born. Our study provides new evidence on the extent to which family factors matter by examining sibling data from the Scottish Longitudinal Study, a large‐scale linkage study created using data from administrative and statistical sources. Random effects linear probability models are used to analyse individual and family‐level variance in the chances of obtaining a HE qualification. Our results show that about 40% of the variation in the chances of attaining a university degree is explained by siblings’ shared family characteristics and about a third of this share is explained by parental social class, education and housing tenure. A high degree of sibling similarity in the outcome was found across all social‐origin classes. However, while siblings of advantaged families are alike because they both graduated from HE, siblings of disadvantaged families are alike because neither of them did. We suggest that parental compensatory strategies in the former families and economic constraints in the latter families may explain such stark patterns of inequality. Finally, we do not find evidence that the availability of sub‐degrees makes a difference to these patterns.
Highlights
Reducing inequalities in access to higher education (HE) is a key policy priority in the UK and beyond
Our sample is split between men and women, and the majority of siblings were aged 34 years or less at the time of the 2011 Census (Table S1). 48% of siblings came from less advantaged families where parents had lower occupations or were long-term unemployed, while 30% of them originated from parents with managerial or professional occupations
It used a novel approach to inform this issue by exploiting linked sibling data from the Scottish Longitudinal Study (SLS), provided estimates of the overall effect of family of origin on children’s chances of obtaining a HE qualification and assessed whether sibling similarities in these chances depend on a range of parental background characteristics
Summary
Reducing inequalities in access to higher education (HE) is a key policy priority in the UK and beyond. One of the limitations of the research evidence used to inform widening access policies in Scotland, our country of interest, is its reliance on the analysis of either aggregate data (at geographical and school level) or individual data which contains only limited information about the family of origin (e.g. data from university applicants concerning whether their parents have a HE qualification or not) This evidence is likely to underestimate the full extent to which family of origin matters for young people’s chances of attaining higher levels of education and is limited in its ability to identify students who are most in need of support. The aim is to provide new empirical evidence for understanding family inequalities and how they shape offsprings’ chances of attaining HE, offering new theoretical and policy-relevant insights on the issue of social inequalities in HE
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