Gender in intergenerational educational persistence across time and place

Primarily using data from the 2010 European Social Survey, we analyse intergenerational educational persistence in 20 European countries, studying cross-country and cross-cluster differences, changes in the degree of intergenerational persistence over time, and the role of gender in determining educational persistence across generations. We find that persistence is highest in the Southern and Eastern European countries, and lowest in the Nordic countries. While persistence in the Nordic and Southern countries has declined over time, it has remained relatively steady in the rest of Europe. Our analysis highlights the importance of a detailed gender analysis in studying intergenerational persistence, finding that mothers' education is a stronger determinant of daughters' (instead of sons') education and fathers' education a stronger determinant of the education of their sons. For most clusters, declines in intergenerational persistence over time are largely driven by increasing mobility for younger women.