Higher Social Origins Research Articles

Rob Mare career trajectory transcription

Only recently have sociologists begun to examine the social origins of educational mismatches in more detail. This research not only repeatedly found, but also investigated why individuals from lower social origin more often have a higher level of education than required for their job (overeducation), and why individuals from a higher social origin more often realize high positions despite having a lower level of education than required for their job (undereducation). While these studies provide additional and valuable empirical insights into the effect of social origin on both types of mismatch separately, to date there has been no investigation on general sociological meaningful conditions, under which the social origin unfolds an effect on undereducation and overeducation in the first place. This paper addresses this gap by examining the relevance of intergenerational stability for the effect of social origin on mismatches. It does so by drawing on arguments from sociological theories on intergenerational (im-)mobility, data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) for the period 1990–2017, and two different measurement methods for educational mismatches. The empirical results show evidence of substantial heterogeneity in the effect of social origin on educational mismatches: A higher parental status is found to be advantageous only for employees with intergenerational stability in social classes and/or occupational tasks. This indicates that the intergenerational transmission of class-specific traits and occupational skills contribute to the effect of social origin on mismatches. The results show no effect of parental status on educational mismatches among employees who are intergenerationally mobile and make up half of the German labor force under investigation. Since this heterogeneity is also found among workers who immigrated to Germany as adults, parental networks within Germany and the corresponding social capital can be ruled out as the main driver behind this finding. Although educational attainment is the most important pathway of intergenerational status maintenance, the results suggest that educational mismatches offer a means of identifying systematic deviations from this pathway. Individuals who follow in the footsteps of their high-status parents are more likely to be employed either at or above their level of education. In the light of the strong heterogeneity revealed, complementary explanations and routes for further research to investigate the link between intergenerational (im-)mobility, social origin and educational mismatches are discussed.

The effect of regional and social origin on health-related sport and physical activity of young people in Europe

This study investigates the role of regional and social origin in explaining health-related sport and physical activity levels of youths and adolescents in Europe. It uses a subsample of 15- to 29-year-olds from the 2017 Eurobarometer (n = 3499). The outcome variable reflects whether respondents meet/exceed the guidelines of the World Health Organisation for health-related sport and physical activity or not. Regional origin is captured by four different European regions. Social origin is measured by parental education, a household’s difficulty paying bills, and the perceived social status of parents. The results show that young people in Southern and Eastern Europe are significantly less likely to meet the guidelines than those in Midwest Europe. While parental education is only a positive contributor in Midwest Europe, a household’s financial resources only play a role in Eastern Europe. Perceived social status increases young people’s likelihood of health-related sport and physical activity in all European regions except Eastern Europe. Collectively, the findings suggest that higher social origin facilitates health-related participation levels, while different factors are at work in different European regions. This study contributes to the literature by providing an international comparison of the role of social origin and by examining young people’s health-related sport participation levels.

Compensatory and Multiplicative Advantages: Social Origin, School Performance, and Stratified Higher Education Enrolment in Finland

AbstractThe rules of intake, which determine how educational institutions are accessed, play a significant part in generating intergenerational educational inequalities. Different rules may allow parental advantages to compensate for students’ lack of advantages (such as academic performance) or to multiply and help only those students who are in a position to use such additional advantages. In this article, we study compensation and the multiplication of advantages in the context of the Finnish higher education system. Entrance exams and a dual model (universities and polytechnics) make this system stand out among many other Western countries and hence suitable for this study. Using high-quality Finnish register data, we study the associations between parental education and stratified higher education enrolment across the school performance distribution. Our results show that polytechnics provide access for poorly performing students from higher social origins (compensatory advantage). Polytechnic education also attracts well-performing students from lower social origins, which leads to a situation in which well-performing students with higher social origins have a substantially larger probability of enrolling in university compared to well-performing students with lower social origins (multiplicative advantage).

The only-child premium and moderation by social origin: Educational stratification in post-reform China

The One Child Policy initiated in the late 1970s created a birth cohort with an unusually high proportion of only children. This paper examines the relationship between being the only child in the family and educational attainment, as well as its potential variations by social origin. Drawing my sample from the China Family Panel Studies, I compare two birth cohorts born before and after the birth-control policy. Results show that in the younger cohort, being the only child in the family produces a premium in educational outcomes, including years of completed schooling and odds of progressing through critical grade transitions. In addition, I observe a pattern that the only-child premium tends to be larger for people with higher social origins in competitive grade transitions.

Behind every successful (wo)man is a successful parent-in-law? The association between resources of the partner’s parents and individual’s occupational attainment

Parents-in-law tend to form an important part of individuals’ social capital and thus can be expected to have an influence on occupational mobility. With Finnish Census Panel data of almost 100,000 individuals born between 1970 and 1979, followed from the age of 18 to their late thirties, we study whether the resources of the parents-in-law are associated with status attainment. We find that an increase in the resources of parents-in-law is positively associated with a change in one’s own status even after the resources of own parents and those of the partner have been taken into account. Moreover, high parent-in-law resources are more beneficial for individuals from higher social origins than lower origins. Being married and having children is associated with a stronger positive influence of parents-in-law. These findings indicate that parents-in-law can improve socioeconomic success but the effect tends to vary by socioeconomic factors and family structure.

Language Use and Children’s BMI Growth among Second-Generation Immigrants in the United Kingdom

This research note analyzes the relationship between language use and children’s Body Mass Index (BMI) growth in the United Kingdom. Making use of the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS), we assess whether the main language spoken in the household explains BMI divergences between immigrants’ and natives’ children. We provide evidence that the integration process hampers BMI growth and therefore exerts a small protective effect: male children living in English-speaking households gain weight slower than those with less integrated parents. However, the protective effect applies only to sons from higher social origins.

Life course research with panel data: An analysis of the reproduction of social inequality.

Panel data are increasingly used in life course research. However, such data would be under-analyzed if only classical methods of life course research (i.e., event-history analysis and sequence analysis) would be used for analyzing them. Methods developed for the analysis of panel data have been shown to be valuable to life course research as well. In this article we emphasize that growth curve modeling and fixed effects regression in particular can supplement the life course research toolbox. In order to demonstrate this, we provide an illustrative panel data analysis using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel from the years 1984-2014 in combination with a classical sociological research question on the reproduction of social inequality. Reinterpreted within the life course framework, we ask: Is there a well-being differential over the life course between people from different social origins? If yes, what is the mediating role of unemployment? Results show that higher social origin indeed relates to higher well-being, and that the well-being differential increases with age. Further, unemployment plays no significant role in mediating origin-specific effects of age on well-being.

Merito o fortuna?

This article uses 2009-10 INVALSI (National Institute for the Evaluation of Education and Training System) data to explore differences by social origin in the attributions of success and failure about school performance among middle school children (11-12 years old). The concept of “self-attribution” refers to the cognitive style (similar to the concept of “locus of control”) of individuals who find internal causes (i.e., within themselves) for success or failure, as opposed to external causes such as luck or help from the others. Given the advantages of self-attribution in terms of children’s school performance and later social outcomes, we study the role of social origin (parents’ education and occupation) in the transmission of this cognitive style that can be considered as one of the (many) channels through which social reproduction takes place. Our findings, based on multilevel regressions (pupils nested within classrooms), show that 1) higher social origin is actually linked to stronger self-attributing style, although its effects seem to be rather small; 2) the occupational component of social origin is weaker than the educational one; 3) the effect of social origin is contingent upon classroom level characteristics such as mean and dispersion of grades; specifically, social origin has stronger effect in heterogeneous and low performance classrooms. In general, children are socialized to internalise their merits and faults and classroom level variance is very low, suggesting that the “internality norm” is widely supported by teachers.

"Social Profile of Indian Physicians "

This paper describes the social profile of 200 physicians, practicing medical profession in Bangalore City of the State of Karnataka. The paper explores the personal, family and educational background of the physicians. This would enable us not only to have a social profile of the medical practitioners in the social system, but may also be of relevance in explaining their professional performance. An important finding of the study reveals that the proportion of those coming from higher social origins being marginally higher at 55 percent. It could be indicating to a trend in which the share of less privileged in higher ranking professions is on the rise. An attempt is made to understand the implications of social origin for other traits. The findings reveal that social origin varies significantly with rural urban background, basis for medical education, age at thinking of medical professions and educational grades of the physicians. However, it varies independent of gender, age and educational achievements of the physicians studied.

Timely graduation in the lower vocational track

In this article, we study the impact of the so‐called non‐meritocratic factors gender, immigrant origin and social origin, and the meritocratic factors ability and achievement, on timely graduation within a specific high school type. Furthermore, the possible influence of teacher assessments of students in elementary school is investigated. Although the group of graduated students contains more girls, fewer students from immigrant origin and more students of higher social origin, multivariate analyses show that only grade point average during high school significantly affects the chances of graduating. Teachers’ assessments that distinguished between graduation chances of students did not affect graduation when controlled for the non‐meritocratic and meritocratic factors in the multivariate model.

Social Origins, Social Statuses and Home Computer Access and Use

This paper assesses the effects of social origins as well as individual level socio-economic statuses on respondents' access to and use of home microcomputers in Canada. The study shows members of lower class origins and individuals in lower socio-economic statuses owning and using a home computer to a significantly lesser extent than those from higher social origins and individual statuses. Much of social origin effects are mediated through respondents' socio-economic statuses, particularly education. Respondents' education, consistent with previous research, is the best predictor of home computer access and use. Moreover, the analyses lend support to Bourdieu's view that upper classes are able to reproduce themselves by adopting

The American Emigrant in Canada: Trends and Consequences

"This article discusses the nature of out-migration from the United States to Canada and assesses the consequences of such emigration for the two countries. It is concluded that, excluding the British born population, being foreign born is a handicap in Canada, not as asset, and the American born overcome this occupational disadvantage by virtue of their higher social origins and education."