Abstract
We study the contribution of students’ circumstances to inequality of opportunity in educational achievement (IOpE) in Western Europe and explore the role of intermediate channelling variables in translating differences in circumstances into educational inequalities. Using the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) database, we find that differences in households’ cultural environment and in parental occupation are the most important contributing circumstances, with school’s circumstances being relevant mostly in Central Europe. Our results show that the relevant channels of IOpE in most countries are students’ educational and occupational expectations, their reading habits and skills, and grade repetition in previous years. These findings can provide policymakers with key insights to aid in designing educational interventions that effectively increase educational opportunities across European countries.
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Data Availability
The datasets analysed during the current study are available in the OECD PISA repository, https://www.oecd.org/pisa/data/2018database/
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Acknowledgments
The authors thank two anonymous referees and the editor for helpful comments and suggestions. They also thank participants at the Inequality Seminar at Department of Social Policy and Intervention (Unversity of Oxford), at the London Inequality Workshop (King’s College London), the 2023 Inaugural III/LIS Comparative Economic Inequality Conference, the XXIX Encuentro de Economía Pública (UNED, Madrid) and the ICAE Seminar at Universidad Complutense de Madrid. The usual disclaimer applies. The authors acknowledge financial support from Fundación La Caixa (Observatorio La Caixa) and from Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad of Spain through projects PID2022-137352NB-C44 (Marrero and Sicilia) and PID2022-137352NB-C43 (Palomino). Gabriela Sicilia is grateful to the Agustín de Betancourt programme financed by the Council of Tenerife under the Tenerife 2030 Strategy and also acknowledges financial support from Fundación Ramón Areces. Juan C. Palomino acknowledges funding from Citi for the Inequality and Prosperity programme at INET at the Oxford Martin School, and from the Atracción del Talento program (Comunidad de Madrid, Spain).
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Marrero, G.A., Palomino, J.C. & Sicilia, G. Inequality of opportunity in educational achievement in Western Europe: contributors and channels. J Econ Inequal 22, 383–410 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10888-023-09595-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10888-023-09595-5