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Growing Wealth Gaps in Education

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  • Fabian T. Pfeffer

    (University of Michigan)

Abstract

Prior research on trends in educational inequality has focused chiefly on changing gaps in educational attainment by family income or parental occupation. In contrast, this contribution provides the first assessment of trends in educational attainment by family wealth and suggests that we should be at least as concerned about growing wealth gaps in education. Despite overall growth in educational attainment and some signs of decreasing wealth gaps in high school attainment and college access, I find a large and rapidly increasing wealth gap in college attainment between cohorts born in the 1970s and 1980s, respectively. This growing wealth gap in higher educational attainment co-occurred with a rise in inequality in children’s wealth backgrounds, although the analyses also suggest that the latter does not fully account for the former. Nevertheless, the results reported here raise concerns about the distribution of educational opportunity among today’s children who grow up in a context of particularly extreme wealth inequality.

Suggested Citation

  • Fabian T. Pfeffer, 2018. "Growing Wealth Gaps in Education," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 55(3), pages 1033-1068, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:demogr:v:55:y:2018:i:3:d:10.1007_s13524-018-0666-7
    DOI: 10.1007/s13524-018-0666-7
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    7. Mari, Gabriele & Keizer, Renske & van Gaalen, Ruben, 2022. "The Timing of Parental Unemployment, Insurance, and Children's Education," SocArXiv 7rm6g, Center for Open Science.
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    16. Grätz, Michael, 2019. "When Less Conditioning Provides Better Estimates: Overcontrol and Collider Bias in Research on Intergenerational Mobility," Working Paper Series 2/2019, Stockholm University, Swedish Institute for Social Research.
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    18. Zorlu, Aslan & van Gent, Wouter, 2020. "Economic Assimilation of the "Third Generation": An Intergenerational Mobility Perspective on Immigration and Integration," IZA Discussion Papers 13855, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Timothy M. Smeeding, 2018. "The PSID in Research and Policy," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 680(1), pages 29-47, November.
    20. Katharine M. Broton & Kari E. Weaver & Minhtuyen Mai, 2018. "Hunger in Higher Education: Experiences and Correlates of Food Insecurity among Wisconsin Undergraduates from Low-Income Families," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 7(10), pages 1-25, September.
    21. Ho, Manh-Toan & La, Viet-Phuong & Nguyen, Minh-Hoang & Pham, Thanh-Hang & Vuong, Thu-Trang & Vuong, Ha-My & Pham, Hung-Hiep & Hoang, Anh-Duc & Vuong, Quan-Hoang, 2020. "An analytical view on STEM education and outcomes: Examples of the social gap and gender disparity in Vietnam," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
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    24. Rehm, Miriam & Schneebaum, Alyssa & Schuster, Barbara, 2022. "Intra-couple wealth inequality: What's demographics got to do with it?," ifso working paper series 22, University of Duisburg-Essen, Institute for Socioeconomics (ifso).

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