The article examines trends of social inequalities in educational attainment in the second half of the twentieth century in Italy, comparing two approaches. The traditional approach uses years of education as a dependent variable and implicitly looks atthe absolute/nominal value of education. The second approach refers to education as a ‘positional good’ and it captures itspossibly changing occupational value over time.Inthis article,following this second perspective,two measures are developed and used:the Educational CompetitiveAdvantage Score (ECAS) measures the value of educational degrees on the basis of their incidence in the population (credential inflation perspective). The second is an effect-proportional scale of education based on the average occupational prestige attained by individuals in each qualification (demand–supply balance perspective). Using data with large sample size from three waves of the Istat Multi-Purpose Survey (1998, 2003 and 2009), the article shows that inequalities based both on social class of origin and parental education declined between 1940 and 1980 birth cohorts, but the effect of parental education reduced less and it is stronger than that of social class in recent cohorts. Considering education as a positional good does not change the main findings obtained using years of education as outcome in the Italian case.
Education as a positional good : implications for social inequalities in educational attainment in Italy / M. Triventi, N. Panichella, G. Ballarino, C. Barone, F. Bernardi. - In: RESEARCH IN SOCIAL STRATIFICATION AND MOBILITY. - ISSN 0276-5624. - 43:(2016), pp. 39-52. [10.1016/j.rssm.2015.04.002]
Education as a positional good : implications for social inequalities in educational attainment in Italy
M. Triventi
Primo
;N. PanichellaSecondo
;G. BallarinoCo-ultimo
;
2016
Abstract
The article examines trends of social inequalities in educational attainment in the second half of the twentieth century in Italy, comparing two approaches. The traditional approach uses years of education as a dependent variable and implicitly looks atthe absolute/nominal value of education. The second approach refers to education as a ‘positional good’ and it captures itspossibly changing occupational value over time.Inthis article,following this second perspective,two measures are developed and used:the Educational CompetitiveAdvantage Score (ECAS) measures the value of educational degrees on the basis of their incidence in the population (credential inflation perspective). The second is an effect-proportional scale of education based on the average occupational prestige attained by individuals in each qualification (demand–supply balance perspective). Using data with large sample size from three waves of the Istat Multi-Purpose Survey (1998, 2003 and 2009), the article shows that inequalities based both on social class of origin and parental education declined between 1940 and 1980 birth cohorts, but the effect of parental education reduced less and it is stronger than that of social class in recent cohorts. Considering education as a positional good does not change the main findings obtained using years of education as outcome in the Italian case.File | Dimensione | Formato | |
---|---|---|---|
1-s2.0-S0276562415000232-main.pdf
accesso riservato
Tipologia:
Publisher's version/PDF
Dimensione
1.59 MB
Formato
Adobe PDF
|
1.59 MB | Adobe PDF | Visualizza/Apri Richiedi una copia |
Pubblicazioni consigliate
I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.