How educational systems structure ethnic inequality among young labour market participants in Europe: occupational placement and variation in the occupational status distribution

Abstract

Prior research as demonstrated that patterns of early labour market careers vary considerably across European societies. However, little research investigated how these patterns differ between immigrants and majority youth and whether the extent of ethnic inequality varies with educational system characteristics. Using the 2009 European Labour Force Survey data for 18 countries on the early careers of non-tertiary educated labour market participants, the results of this study show that immigrants work in lower-status jobs more frequently than majority youth do. In addition and conditional on these mean differences, immigrant’s status distributions are more dispersed suggesting more erratic early career patterns. Educational systems characteristics moderate these differences: the occupational status difference between immigrants and majority youth is considerably larger in countries with strongly differentiated, specifically highly tracked educational systems. In addition, ethnic disadvantages are even more severe in differentiated educational systems when central exams are present. The findings further show that educational tracking is associated with less variation in a country’s occupational status distribution, thus shaping ethnic inequality beyond its relationship with mean differences. Ethnic penalties are estimated to be considerably more severe in highly differentiated countries due to their lower baseline variability in the occupational status distribution.

Publication
Research in Social Stratification and Mobility
Date