How Equal are Educational Opportunities? Family Background and Student Achievement in Europe and the United States

Woessmann, Ludger

doi:10.2139/ssrn.586784

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How Equal are Educational Opportunities? Family Background and Student Achievement in Europe and the United States

38 Pages Posted: 6 Sep 2004

See all articles by Ludger Woessmann

Ludger Woessmann

Ifo Institute for Economic Research; Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA); CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute for Economic Research); University of Munich - Ifo Institute for Economic Research

Date Written: September 2004

Abstract

This paper estimates the effects of family-background characteristics on student performance in the US and 17 Western European school systems. Family background has strong effects both in Europe and the United States, remarkably similar in size. France and Flemish Belgium achieve the most equitable performance for students from different family backgrounds, and Britain and Germany the least. Equality of opportunities is unrelated to countries' mean performance. Quantile regressions show little variation in family-background effects across the ability distribution in most countries.

Keywords: equality of opportunity, student performance, family background, TIMSS, equity-efficiency tradeoff, intergenerational mobility

JEL Classification: I21, J62, H52

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Woessmann, Ludger, How Equal are Educational Opportunities? Family Background and Student Achievement in Europe and the United States (September 2004). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=586784 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.586784