Social inequality in access to prestigious fields of study: The interplay of students’ application behavior and universities’ recruitment procedures

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Heike Solga
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research
• Term: from 2017 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 398433179

This project studies social inequalities in access to prestigious fields of studies. These fields are of interest as not only a tertiary educational degree but also the fields of study completed influence future labor market attainment. We investigate for the study programs in medicine and pharmacy whether and how universities’ recruitment procedures and criteria and their interplay with applicants’ individual characteristics and application behavior contribute to social inequalities in access to the nationwide selective university places in these fields. We use in register data of the Stiftung fuer Hochschulzulassung and a linked online study, conducted by the WZB. The aim of the project is to better understand whether and why universities’ recruitment procedures and criteria influence success of applications differently for applicants from lower and higher social background. We will explore how important are so-called primary effects of social stratification (i.e., based on performance) and secondary effects (based on educational decisions and application strategies, net of differences in performance). The project will provide new insights in how social inequalities in access to prestigious fields of studies (and these occupations) are generated by institutional hurdles and which recruitment procedures and criteria are particularly disadvantageous for applicants from lower social background.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants