Original scientific paper
Parental Education, Income Level and Early School Leaving in Croatia: Trends of the Last Decade
Teo MATKOVIĆ
orcid.org/0000-0002-3538-1873
; Faculty of Law, Zagreb
Abstract
The connection between parental social status and education
success of their children makes for one of the basic tenets of
sociology of education and social mobility theories. Despite
being explained by various social mechanisms and showing
significant variation among countries and periods, this tie has
been regularly established by empirical research. However, in
Croatia social inequalities in education have barely been
explored for the entire transitional period. This paper is based
on Labor Force Survey microdata for the 1999–2008 period.
It explores association between parental resources and early
school leaving outcomes within the context of ongoing
educational expansion in Croatia. The key question being
explored is whether the effect of financial and educational
status of the family on educational outcomes has increased or
decreased during late postcomunist transition. The provided
analyses of basic models and alternative specifications based
upon a decade of LFS data give clear and robust evidence
about the association between a low level of parental
education and low household income level with a high risk of
early school leaving. Also, both administrative and survey
data point at the time trend of decreasing incidence of early
school leaving that cannot be explained solely in terms of
compositional effect of changing parental educational
structure. Throughout the late transitional period no clear
trend of either increase or decrease of association between
family background and educational outcomes was found.
Instead, there are clues that risk is becoming concentrated
among those close to the bottom of the educational and
income structure, while among others there is evidence for a
trend of convergence towards saturation in upper secondary
education participation.
Keywords
parental education; household income; early school leaving; transition; Croatia; youth
Hrčak ID:
60108
URI
Publication date:
31.10.2010.
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