This study looks at the long-term effects of parental unemployment on children’s education. It finds that while there are negative impacts if the unemployment is during adolescence, there are, on average, none if it happens in early childhood. The researchers used data based on a 10 per cent sample of the adult population of Finland, … Read more
The heterogeneous effects of parental unemployment on siblings’ educational outcomes
Formal differentiation at upper secondary education in Finland: subject-level choices and stratified pathways to socio-economic status and unemployment
This paper looks at how Finnish students’ track placement at upper secondary school is associated with their later-life socio-economic status and probability of unemployment using high-quality full population register data. The study finds that choosing advanced maths – in a system where students are given the freedom to make their own subject-level decisions – leads … Read more
Does tracking really affect labour-market outcomes in the long run? Estimating the long-term effects of secondary-school tracking in West Germany
This paper investigates to what extent track attendance in secondary education affects labour-market prospects of West German individuals with similar starting conditions. The article also focuses on whether track attendance has a role in widening social inequality. Using pooled data from two panel studies on West Germans born between 1964 and 1986, the researchers investigate … Read more
The early labour-market returns to upper secondary qualifications track in England
This paper examines if people who followed the academic track (A-levels) rather than the vocational track (NVQs) in upper secondary education in England show differentiated occupational level and disposable income by age 25. The authors consider England as an interesting country case because students are ‘free to choose’ which upper secondary track they follow, unlike … Read more
Upper secondary school tracking, labour market outcomes and intergenerational inequality in Denmark
This paper is a comprehensive analysis of how secondary school education of Danish children affects their early job and earning prospects. Using administrative data on more than 50,000 children born in Denmark in 1986, the researchers looked at whether young people were placed on an academic or vocational track at school and the sort of … Read more
Educational tracking and long-term outcomes by social origin: Seven countries in comparison
This paper uses longitudinal data from seven countries to assess how systems of educational tracking can impact on social mobility. Studies which simply compare comprehensive and tracked systems may be flawed, the research suggests, because of differences in how countries separate students for instructional purposes. The researchers used large-scale longitudinal data from Denmark, England, Finland, … Read more
Job Satisfaction and Sexual Orientation in Britain
This research looks at how satisfied lesbian, gay and bisexual individuals are at work compared with their heterosexual peers. Using British data, the researchers find lower satisfaction levels for bisexual men only and also that policies designed to promote equality for LGB(T) workers have no direct impact on how satisfied workers are. Results showed that … Read more
Comparing Groups of Life-Course Sequences Using the Bayesian Information Criterion and the Likelihood-Ratio Test
This paper asks how researchers can statistically assess differences in groups of life-course trajectories. The authors address a long-standing inadequacy of social sequence analysis by proposing an adaption of the Bayesian information criterion (BIC) and the likelihood-ratio test (LRT) for assessing differences in groups of sequence data. Unlike previous methods, this adaption provides a useful … Read more
No Stratified Effect of Unemployment on Incomes: How the Market, State, and Household Compensate for Income Loss in the United Kingdom and Switzerland
This paper looks at the loss of income in the two years after unemployment in the UK and in Switzerland and finds that while lower income groups are more vulnerable to becoming unemployed, they are not necessarily more vulnerable to its consequences. The researchers used data on more than 35,000 people who took part in … Read more
Gender roles and selection mechanisms across contexts: A comparative analysis of the relationship between unemployment, self-perceived health, and gender
This paper looks at gender differences in the way unemployment impacts on health. It finds on average women suffer less from unemployment than men, and this effect is more pronounced in countries with traditional gender roles than in more egalitarian societies. The researchers wanted to know if the negative effect of unemployment is stronger among … Read more