Abstract
Adolescents with high educational attainment generally have better outcomes across the lifespan than adolescents with lower educational attainment. This study investigated how three measures of socioeconomic status (SES)–maternal education, paternal education, and neighbourhood SES–combined to predict adolescent educational attainment (track level at age 17). We proposed three mechanisms for this pathway: cognitive ability (at age 11), primary school teacher assessment (stating the secondary education level suitable for a child at age 11), and educational expectations (at age 14). Using the data of 2,814 Dutch adolescents from the Prevention and Incidence of Asthma and Mite Allergy (PIAMA) study, logistic regressions tested associations between SES and educational attainment. Structural equation modelling (SEM) tested mediational pathways between SES and educational attainment. In models with three SES measures, having a medium-educated mother was associated with higher educational attainment relative to having a low-educated mother (OR; 95% CI: 1.83; 1.41–2.38), and having a high-educated mother was associated with higher educational attainment relative to having a low-educated mother (OR; 95% CI: 3.44; 2.59–4.55). The odds ratios for paternal education showed a similar pattern. We found no association between neighbourhood SES and adolescent educational attainment, so neighbourhood SES was removed from further analyses. Mediational analyses revealed that cognitive ability (30.0%), teacher assessment (28.5%), and educational expectations (1.2%) explained 59.8% of the total association between parental SES and educational attainment. The results showed that mother education and father education were both important for understanding the strong association between parental SES and adolescent educational attainment. In the Netherlands, the association between parental SES and educational attainment can be largely explained by cognitive ability and teacher assessments.
Highlights
Educational attainment is a key goal of adolescence [1]
The results showed that both mother education and father education remained independently associated with higher adolescent educational attainment when the other parent’s education was included
We found no link between neighbourhood socioeconomic status (SES) and adolescent educational attainment, nor evidence of interactions between parental education levels
Summary
High educational attainment is associated with, and expected to have a causal effect on, positive outcomes later in life through many economic, health-behavioural, and social-psychological mechanisms. These outcomes include getting a stable, well-paid, high-status job, healthier behaviour and longer life expectancy, and increased political engagement and trust [2,3,4,5,6]. Technological development, and labour market polarisation further increase the importance of educational attainment for outcomes throughout life [9,10]; highly educated citizens can best take advantage of these processes [11]. It is important to better understand the predictors and pathways which are related to educational attainment during adolescence
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