Education’s Equalizing Role is Probably Overstated: Causal Evidence from Danish Identical Twins
11:00am -12:00pm
Friday, February 28th, 2025
Social Science Centre 5220
A lecture by Kristian Karlson
Kristian Bernt Karlson is Professor of Sociology at the University of Copenhagen. He studies educational mobility, social stratification, and quantitative methods. He is the winner of the 2022 Raymond Boudon Award for early career achievement in sociology and the 2023 Leo Goodman Award for contributions to sociological methodology. He currently serves as Deputy Editor of Sociological Science. Recent work appears in the American Journal of Sociology, Sociological Methods & Research, and the European Sociological Review.
Abstract
Education is widely recognized by sociologists as a key channel of intergenerational social mobility. However, most studies use analytical frameworks that tend to overstate the mediating role of education because they overestimate the returns to schooling. We formally demonstrate why this is the case, and we formulate causal estimands that correct for the selection into schooling on unobserved characteristics. Leveraging data from 10,000 identical twins in Denmark born between 1940 and 1979, we provide selectivity-corrected estimates showing that education plays a significantly smaller role in bridging family background and labor market attainment than previously thought. Our estimates put the share of the family background effect mediated by education at 15–35%, in contrast to the 50–75% reported in the literature using conventional methods. This significant discrepancy stems from conventional approaches substantially overestimating the returns to education. The implications of these findings challenge existing theories of social mobility, suggesting that channels other than formal schooling must be considered to fully understand how privilege is passed on through generations.
The Sociology Colloquium Series, brought to you by the Department of Sociology and the Social Science Student Donation Fund, is open to the public, students and scholars of any discipline.
