Demographic and social pathways of educational reproduction: A cross-national study

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Thomas Leopold; Gordey Yastrebov, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 462315427

This project combines traditional retrospective models with more recent prospective models into an integrative model of educational reproduction. Our model considers the social reproduction of education as a social attribute and the demographic reproduction of populations carrying this attribute. We examine the role of various demographic pathways: union formation and homogamy, union (in)stability and repartering, fertility timing and quantum. To combine retrospective and prospective approaches, we introduce a method that substantially reduces the data requirements of prospective models. The method allows estimating prospective models based on retrospective data commonly available in surveys. It addresses two key issues – retrospective sampling bias and the problem of identifying representative cohorts. The method also allows disentangling social and demographic pathways of reproduction. The proposed research will leverage this method to examine educational reproduction prospectively using national and cross-nationally comparative data (GGS, SHARE, ISSP, ESS, SOEP, FFS). Our research – organized in two work packages – will enrich theoretical, methodological and empirical knowledge of educational reproduction and provide novel insight into the renewal of populations and their inequality structures. In doing so, the project will advance our understanding of social inequality and its reproduction in families. Moreover, the method that we introduce and further develop in this project will facilitate future prospective research on social stratification.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Ireland
• Cooperation Partner: Dr. Jan Skopek