The labor market returns to “first-in-family” university graduates

Abstract

We examine how first-in-family (FiF) graduates — those whose parents do not have university degrees — fare in the labor market in England. We find that among women, FiF graduates earn 7.4% less on average than graduates whose parents have a university degree. For men, we do not find a FiF wage penalty. A decomposition of the wage difference between FiF and non-FiF graduates reveals two interesting findings. First, two-thirds of the female FiF penalty is explained by certain characteristics, including having lower educational attainment, not attending an elite university, selecting particular degree courses, working in smaller firms, working in jobs that do not require their degree, and motherhood. Second, FiF graduate men also differ in their endowments from non-FiF graduate men; however, FiF men earn higher returns on their endowments than non-FiF men and thus compensate for their relative social disadvantage, while FiF women do not. We also estimate the returns to graduation forpotentialFiF and non-FiF young people. We find that the wage returns to graduation are not lower among FiF graduates compared to those who match their parents with a degree.

#GirlBossing the university side hustle: Entrepreneurial femininities, postfeminism and the veneer of ‘female success’ in times of crisis

“…In the UK, the lifetime increase in gross earnings as a result of attending HE is estimated to be £240k for men but only £140k for women (Britton et al, 2020). Moreover, ‘first-in-family’ women graduates are subject to an additional class penalty (around 7.4%) that is not evidenced for their male counterparts (Adamecz-Völgyi et al, 2022).…”

High Achieving First-Generation University Students

“…Even after graduating, female first-generation students in England face a wage penalty in the labor market, which seems to be partially driven by lower prior attainment and having a lower probability of studying at elite universities (Adamecz-Völgyi et al, 2020). This echoes a key finding from this literature that first-generation students tend to have lower prior attainment than their peers who match their parents with a university degree (Henderson et al, 2020;Schurer et al, 2020), which makes it difficult to disentangle the impact of prior attainment and family background.…”

“…Previous literature on first-generation university graduates has tried to explain how parental education shapes decisions about what and where they study for university (Anelli, 2020), whether they have differential experiences and outcomes whilst at university (Riehl, 1994;Schurer et al, 2020), and whether or not university serves as an equalizer once they enter the labor market (Adamecz-Völgyi et al, 2020). Henderson et al (2020) show that first-generation students in England are more likely to study Law, Economics, and Management and less likely to study Other Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities than their peers who match their parents with a degree.…”

Intergenerational educational mobility and the COVID-19 pandemic

“…While the literature on the impacts of the pandemic is rapidly growing, to date, none of this work has explored the potentially differential impact of the pandemic on first in family or firstgeneration university graduates even though there is evidence that this group has worse labour market outcomes already in early career (Adamecz-Völgyi et al, 2022). In this paper, we examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the labour market experiences of 'first in family ' (FiF) students.…”

“…'Potential FiF' refers to young people who could be the first in their family to achieve a university degree because neither of their parents has one(Adamecz-Völgyi et al, 2022).…”