Personality and the Intergenerational Transmission of Educational Attainment: Evidence from Germany

Ryberg, Renee; Bauldry, Shawn; Schultz, Michael A.; Steinhoff, Annekatrin; Shanahan, Michael J.

doi:10.1007/s10964-017-0704-6

Cited by 6 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…We could not control for factors in early childhood, health indicators (Björklund et al 2012), substance or alcohol use, nor for cognitive or personality traits. Recently, these viewpoints have been increasingly studied (e.g., Ryberg et al 2017). We were unable to estimate the quality of time spent with parents-family time can also mean having arguments-nor consider whether mothers chose to spend much time with their teenagers or remained at home involuntarily (Ashbourne and Daly 2010;Kjaergaard Thomsen 2015;Milkie et al 2015).…”

Section: Weaknesses and Strengthsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teenage Time Use and Educational Attainment in Adulthood in Finland

2021

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We investigated the role of teenage everyday social ties in educational outcomes by examining the association between teenage time use and educational attainment in adulthood. The sample consisted of young people aged 10–18 from the 1979 Finnish Time Use Survey, and the same respondents’ educational attainment later in life recorded from population register data at the year of 40th birthday (n = 366 men and 393 women). We assessed the associations of time spent with the parents, on studying, leisure activities, as well as social connectedness with friends and participation in extracurricular activities, with educational outcomes. Our findings indicated that time spent with the father is positively associated with the likelihood of completing tertiary education for both daughters and sons. In particular, time spent with lower-education fathers was associated with teenagers’ future tertiary education. However, intense friendships and participation in extracurricular activities were not associated with academic achievement later in life. The findings suggest that educational attainment is partly explained by teenage time spent with the family. Less-educated fathers can enhance the attainment of higher education of their children by spending more time with their teenage children.

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Section: Weaknesses and Strengthsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teenage Time Use and Educational Attainment in Adulthood in Finland

2021

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“…Some recent psychological frameworks do in fact investigate psychological factors in the intergenerational SES transmission, such as cognitive competencies (Bourne et al, 2018), personality traits (Ryberg et al, 2017), and internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors (Wickrama et al, 2005). Though such frameworks provide valuable insights, most of these psychological factors are either highly stable in nature with a strong genetic component (i.e., traits) or are pathological in nature, concerning a specific subsample of adolescents.…”

Section: Socioeconomic (Dis)continuity Across Generationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Socioeconomic (dis)continuity across generations

Fakkel

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Relatively little is known about which individual competencies help determine if adolescents experience social reproduction or social mobility. Consequently, it remains a challenge to identify effective policies that improve equality of opportunity. For example, in some societies that perceive themselves as meritocratic such as the U.S. (Fergusson et al., 2008) and the Netherlands (Zumbuehl et al., 2022), the educational level in which adolescents are stratified still largely depend on socioeconomic background. Hence, a further exploration of individual competencies relevant for social reproduction and social mobility is essential for better understanding how adolescents attain their socioeconomic status as young adults. The purpose of this dissertation was to advance our understanding of the role of adolescent psychosocial competencies in the relationship between parental SES and young adulthood SES. To this end, we assessed the extent to which adolescents’ behavioral control and social competence affect social reproduction and social mobility. Combining all findings, we conclude that socioeconomic differences in behavioral control were small to none, and therefore behavioral control appears to play no role in social reproduction. Behavioral control did however have a positive direct effect on young adulthood SES outcomes (educational attainment in particular), but not more so for adolescents with a low parental SES than for those with a high parental SES. Hence, adolescents with a lower parental SES and high levels of behavioral control are more likely to attain a higher SES in young adulthood than their parents – thus experiencing intergenerational social mobility – but are unlikely to catch up to adolescents with a high parental SES and high levels of behavioral control. Social competence was mostly unrelated to both parental SES and young adulthood SES, and therefore appears to play no role in social reproduction or social mobility. Our findings indicate that adolescent psychosocial competencies have a modest impact on the attainment of young adulthood SES, while the positive effect of parental SES on young adulthood SES remains prominent. Hence, more structural solutions that go beyond the individual adolescent’s responsibility may be required to further attenuate the predominant effect of parental SES on young adulthood SES. The findings in this dissertation are considerably affected by socioeconomic differences in participant inclusion and retention. In particular, families with a lower SES were less likely to participate in our studies and also more likely to drop out across waves. Considering that for example adolescents with low levels of behavioral control were also more likely to drop out, we may be missing crucial data which potentially has far-reaching consequences for research conclusions and their generalizability to the population. If more families and adolescents with a lower SES could have been included and retained, we may have found associations between parental SES, adolescent behavioral control and social competence, and young adulthood SES to be more in line with principles of social reproduction or social mobility. The inclusion and retention challenges experienced in our samples are not unique in the field of developmental psychology, though a critical reflection on its consequences sometimes is.

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Parental SES and family support as predictors of educational level: Testing the buffering effect of effortful control and peer support

Fakkel,

Peeters,

Branje

et al. 2024

Journal of Adolescence

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IntroductionExposure to family risk factors increases adolescents' chances of attaining a lower educational level. However, some adolescents attain a high educational level despite being exposed to family risk factors such as a lower parental socioeconomic status (SES) or receiving less family support.MethodUsing data from the Dutch TRAILS cohort study (NT1 = 2175; Mage = 11.1, SD = 0.55, 50.8% female), we investigated if higher levels of effortful control and peer support can buffer against the negative effects of a lower parental SES and less family support on educational level. Two multinomial logistic regressions were performed (from early to mid‐adolescence and from mid‐adolescence to young adulthood) with post hoc tests to contrast four ordinal educational levels: practical vocational, theoretical vocational, higher general, and (pre‐)university.ResultsAdolescents with a higher parental SES were consistently more likely to end up at a higher educational level, but family support was hardly associated with educational level. Neither effortful control nor peer support buffered the associations of parental SES and family support with educational level. Effortful control did have a positive direct (compensatory) effect on the educational level.ConclusionWe conclude that other individual competencies or more structural changes may be more helpful buffers for reducing socioeconomic inequalities in educational attainment.

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Personality and the Intergenerational Transmission of Educational Attainment: Evidence from Germany

Cited by 6 publications

References 50 publications

Teenage Time Use and Educational Attainment in Adulthood in Finland

Teenage Time Use and Educational Attainment in Adulthood in Finland

Socioeconomic (dis)continuity across generations

Parental SES and family support as predictors of educational level: Testing the buffering effect of effortful control and peer support

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