Education and Social Mobility in Europe: Levelling the Playing Field for Europe's Children and Fuelling its Economy. WWWforEurope Working Paper No. 80

The persistence of socioeconomic outcomes across generations acts as a barrier to a society's ability to exploit its resources efficiently. In order to derive policy measures which aim at accelerating intergenerational mobility, we review the existent body of research on the causes, effects and the measurement of intergenerational mobility. We also present recent empirical works which study intergenerational mobility in Europe, around the globe, and its relevance for economic growth. We recommend four policy measures to reduce the negative impacts of intergenerational persistence in economic outcomes: universal and high-quality child care and pre-school programmes; later school tracking and increased access to vocational training to reduce skill mismatch and facilitate technological development; integration programmes for migrants; and simultaneous investment in schooling and later social security programmes.