Research on the role of social origin in the educational opportunities of individuals focuses primarily on comparing the education of children and parents. The results of this research have repeatedly shown that there is a positive correlation between the level of education of two successive generations, but that this correlation has declined over time. The number of young people who are unable to match their parents’ educational level is growing.
Trends in education inequality
For example, Figure 1 shows that individuals who have a highly educated father or mother are more likely to have a high education (i.e., a higher education qualification) than individuals with less educated parents.
For the latter group, the odds of becoming highly educated have increased when comparing different birth cohorts (especially for the most recent cohort), while it has remained more or less constant for individuals with highly educated parents. This applies to both fathers’ and mothers’ educational levels.
This finding suggests that the positive correlation between the parents’ education and that of their children has decreased.
Figure 1. Relationship between educational level of parents and children, by birth cohort. (Source: Family survey of the Dutch population 1992-93, 1998, 2000, 2003 and 2009, own calculations)
Taking a three-generation perspective
However, the influence of social origin extends beyond that of parents. This had already been observed in early studies of social stratification and mobility. Grandparents, as well as siblings, uncles and aunts, and cousins, can contribute to an individual’s social position through the deployment of different types of resources and support. Thus, to establish the overall influence of social origin, it is necessary to consider the role of the extended family.
Recently, the three-generation perspective on social mobility has received attention within sociology. Parents also have parents, and children go on to have children of their own. Is the similarity between grandparents and grandchildren therefore the product of the two intergenerational effects involved? Or does the impact of grandparents on their grandchildren sometimes arise without the intervention of their children, the middle generation?
The prediction is that there is a direct grandparent effect on individuals’ educational opportunities. There is also more opportunity for this kind of mobility effects in today’s Dutch society. Higher life expectancy has created more overlap between the lives of grandparents and those of grandchildren. As a result, especially with increased leisure time, people are devoting more energy to their role as grandparents. In addition, the increased labour participation of mothers, especially in the absence of the other parent due to divorce, death, or migration, has led to increasing reliance on grandparents for childcare and the care for grandchildren. Their role in parenting has therefore become more important.
Downward mobility following upward mobility
The three-generation perspective is also gaining importance due to an increase in downward mobility. A growing group of individuals attain a lower level of education than their parents. The huge educational expansion in the Netherlands of recent decades, plus the fact that there is no such thing as a higher level of education than university, mean that, with so many people being highly educated, there is a greater risk that their children will fail to reach the same level.
An important next question is whether the children of recent social risers are more likely to drop down the social ladder. Working-class children who have transcended their parents’ social environment may not quite belong to the upper middle class yet, making it difficult for them to maintain their leading position. Almost one hundred years ago, Schumpeter already pointed to the American saying ‘Three generations from overall to overall’ to indicate that the majority of affluent families in capitalist societies tend to rise and fall rapidly from one generation to the next.
The role of grandparents
Figure 2 shows the correlation between the educational level of grandfathers (from both father’s and mother’s side) and that of their grandchildren. Grandmothers are not included here, because for this generation we can expect men’s education levels to be more determinant than those of women.
It appears that individuals with highly educated grandfathers are more likely to be highly educated than those with less educated grandfathers. The observed correlation is slightly stronger on the father’s side than on the mother’s side.
Figure 2. Relationship between level of education of grandfathers and grandchildren. (Source: Family survey of the Dutch population 1992-93, 1998, 2000, 2003 and 2009, own calculations)
Direct or indirect grandparent effect?
The key question is whether there is a direct effect of grandparents on grandchildren, or whether social reproduction occurs through the intermediate generation of parents, whereby grandparents influence their grandchildren indirectly.
Figure 3 shows that in the case of highly educated parents, there is no direct effect of the grandfathers’ level of education on that of their grandchildren. Thus, the probability of being highly educated is the same for individuals with highly educated parents and less educated grandparents as for those with highly educated parents as well as highly educated grandparents.
Figure 3. Relationship between level of education of grandfathers and grandchildren, by parents’ educational level. (Source: Family survey of the Dutch population 1992-93, 1998, 2000, 2003 and 2009, own calculations)
Grandparents can compensate
Among lower-educated parents, we do see a direct effect of the grandfathers’ level of education on that of their grandchildren. Within this group of parents, if the grandfathers are highly educated, the grandchildren are more likely to be highly educated than if the grandfathers are less educated.
Highly educated grandparents are apparently able to partially compensate for the parents’ lower level of education in terms of the likelihood of their grandchildren achieving a high level of education. In this way, a three-generation perspective offers new and complementary insights into how social inequality is reproduced in education.
This article is a translation of a piece in Dutch, written by Maarten H.J. Wolbers, professor in Educational research at Radboud University. The Dutch article appeared earlier on Sociale Vraagstukken. Foto: Federico Giampieri via Unsplash