L'EFFETTO DIRETTO DELLE ORIGINI SOCIALI SULLA DESTINAZIONE OCCUPAZIONALE IN PROSPETTIVA COMPARATA

The direct effect of social origin on occupational destination in comparative perspective Research on social stratification has extensively studied the association between parental status and children’s occupational achievement (intergenerational mobility), as well as the association between parental status and children’s educational achievement (inequality of educational opportunities), which appears to be a substantial part of the former association. In comparison, less work has been devoted to the study the direct effect of social origin (DESO) on occupational outcomes, that is the association between family background and occupational attainment which remains to be observed when education is controlled for (OD|E). This dissertation includes 4 main sections. First of all, it outlines with an historical approach the main contributions of the literature and the main methodological paradigms concerning the relationship between social origin, education and destination. This chapter reports the major contributions in social mobility, social stratification studies and recent developments in the fields. Secondly, this work investigates the existence of the DESO using fully comparable data including all European countries (EU-Silc 2005 and 2011 and ESS 2002-2014). It also looks at the variation of the DESO depending on individual’s education. A relevant feature of the study is that it explores whether the effect of social origin on social destination changes when different measures of occupational achievement are considered. The use of different measures of occupational outcomes is not just a robustness check, but has also a theoretical relevance, enabling us to explore the different patterns of the intergenerational transmission of different dimensions of inequality. The study compares the empirical evidence between females and males, in order to observe the gender variation of the DESO in the European context and to compare country clusters. The third and the fourth sections deal with one of the mechanisms by which the DESO works, that is the differences in productivity related to the family of origin. It looks in two different ways to the competences required for an occupational career, including both cognitive and non-cognitive competences. The third chapter shows a common competence structure in 21 countries, and its relationships with the different dimensions of the DESO. The fourth chapter analyzes the direct effect of social origin on cognitive competences, showing how it varies as a function of changing educational institutions in Western countries. The third chapter considers the literature which has shown that competencies are positively associated with social origin, education and occupational status (Bowles & Gintis, 1979; Heckman et.al. 2006; 2013; Brunello & Schlotter, 2011; Barone & Van de Werfhorst, 2011). Moreover, the modernization process, after three industrial revolutions and the increase of technology, changes the set of competences needed in education and in the labor market, similarly in all the western industrial economies. The aim of this work is threefold. First, it studies the factor analytic structure of 43 competencies, in three domains: literacy, numeracy and non-scholastic skills, which are homogeneous in 21 countries using PIAAC data (2013). Second, it studies the effect of parental education, education, occupation, income, age and gender on 11 skill factors. Third, it shows the variation in these relationships with competencies used at work and in daily life. A configurational and congeneric structural model of competencies is estimated for all countries with three correlated errors. There is a convergence of the competences structure across countries, related to the technological and industrial development in Western countries, but there are also country-specific characteristics due to national development paths. There are positive correlations among all the competences and the exogenous variables, except for age, which has a negative path coefficient. In the model the correlations of education and parental education (background) with most competences, but some cognitive skills, are weak in all countries. However, both cognitive and non-scholastic skills show a strong association with occupation and income (destination), confirming previous literature (Heckman, 2016; 2013). Moreover, there are higher correlations among non-scholastic skills and income and cognitive skills and occupation in all countries. In all the countries, there are differences in the magnitude of the relationship among competences’ factors and exogenous variables, holding separate work and daily life dimensions. Separating the sample by age (under 35, above 35; threshold chosen to have sufficient cases for all countries), we argue that older respondents, having had their education earlier, might show weaker correlations of education with the skill factors than younger correspondents. We could not confirm this hypothesis because in most of the countries the oldest age group shows highest correlations among education and competencies. Finally, the fourth chapter analyzes the difference in productivity from another perspective, studying the direct effect of social origin on cognitive competences, controlling for the change of different educational institutions over time. One of the main reasons why education should matter for intergenerational attainment is its importance in the development of skills and competences, but the literature has rarely considered their links to family background. Moreover, it is well established that intelligence and cognitive competences of younger generations have been improving over time (Flynn, 2013). Researchers have identified changes in educational institutions as one of the key factors behind both trends of weakening importance of family background for education and improving cognitive skills (e.g. Williams, 2013; Baker, 2015; Pöyliö et al. 2018). The modernization process has favoured the implementation of a set of reforms aiming at opening educational institutions to children with more diverse family backgrounds: educational expansion, the removal of dead-ends in higher education pathways, rising of compulsory school age, and, as a consequence, increasing equal opportunities. The chapter studies the associations between social origin, changes in educational institutions and cognitive competences. It is argued that there is a direct effect of social origin on cognitive competences, controlling for the tertiary education, parental tertiary education and differences between educational institutions. The study uses again PIAAC (2013) data for 21 western countries, matched with cohort-specific information on educational policies concerning the removal of dead-end of secondary and tertiary education. Data are analyzed through OLS estimates for the sample, applying population weights and country fixed effects, as well as a set of country-specific estimations for the comparative purposes. The chapter shows that the competences are higher in younger age than in older age. Parental tertiary education contributes to skills over and above children’s own education or institutional changes. Educational institutional changes reduce the importance of direct and indirect effect of parental tertiary education, with the exception of reforms. On average, reforms increase the importance of family background. It has been showed that children of advantaged families are better able to exploit the possibilities of institutional change to further improve their abilities.