Intergenerational Transmission of Education: Internalized Aspirations versus Parent Pressure

Maximilian Müller (University of California - Berkeley)

24 janvier 2022, 14h00–15h30


Salle online

Job Market Seminar


High school graduates in Germany who lack parents with college experience are 40 percentage points less likely to attend college than those with college-educated parents, despite the fact that in Germany college is free. This study provides evidence that parental influence explains a significant portion of this socio-economic gap through at least two channels: one, parental pressure and two, the intergenerational transmission of beliefs and preferences. To understand parental influence, I conduct a field experiment with 1,195 students and 819 parents in Germany. Importantly, I experimentally make students’ stated college plans visible to parents. In the first finding, visibility to parents doubles the socio-economic gap in college plans to 27 percentage points. This is mainly driven by a large increase in college plans among students with college-educated parents. To disentangle mechanisms, I collect detailed survey data on students’ and parents’ subjective expectations for various career tracks and estimate a structural model of career choice under uncertainty. Model simulations indicate that 40% of the socio-economic gap in college plans is explained by parental pressure and 44% by students internalizing family-specific beliefs.

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