Carlo Barone

Some Things Never Change Gender Segregation in Higher Education across Eight Nations and Three Decades

This article examines the overall strength, the qualitative pattern, and the evolution over time of gender segregation in higher education across eight European countries. Although previous studies have focused primarily on the divide between humanistic and scientific fields, this work indicates that this divide accounts for no more than half of the association between gender and college major. The degree of gender imbalance is highly variable within scientific fields as well as within humanistic fields. We can make sense of these findings once we posit the existence of a second, equally important gender divide that can be described as the care–technical divide. Accordingly, this work develops a topological model to show that these two dimensions together account for more than 90 percent of gender segregation in the countries under study. Moreover, this model can be used to show the noticeable degree of cross-national stability in both the qualitative pattern and the overall strength of gender segregation. The empirical analyses also point to a generalized stagnation of integration of college majors in recent decades. Taken together, these results indicate that gender segregation has stabilized to an almost identical level and displays a similar qualitative pattern in several countries. This suggests that cultural forces underlying gender segregation are highly resilient, not least because they are sustained by a number of structural developments in educational and occupational institutions.

INTRODUCTION: Career mobility, education, and intergenerational reproduction in five European societies

Mobility studies constitute the most technically sophisticated major branch of contemporary sociology, as is well illustrated by the methodological array of this special issue. Perhaps just because of their methodological acumen and evidential scruples, more than any other part of the discipline, they bring forth, frustratingly or fascinatingly, the complex and inconclusive character of social processes, their ‘constant flux’ as Robert Eriksson and John Goldthorpe summed it up in their landmark study. Neither deindustrialization nor globalization seems to have created any new general trend of interand of intra-generational mobility. The long shadow of parental background is still there, varying somewhat between countries. Education matters, but not more than decades ago. Occupational careers have, on the whole, not become more fluid and unpredictable. They are still governed by social birth and education, which sometimes, but not always, accumulate inequalities over the life-course. Editorial credit for this issue goes to Carlo Barone at the University of Trento, Italy, whom I want to thank for a very good job. We have had a serious problem of space to accommodate the full richness of all the contributions. When we finally got the page tally, some cuts had to be made, which the guest editor and the contributors have accepted in good grace. As a modest contribution to austerity, I have refrained from writing a normal editorial. Göran Therborn

CAREER MOBILITY IN ITALY

ABSTRACT This article examines the role of social origins and education for career mobility in contemporary Italy by means of growth curves models. We find that opportunities for career advancement are rather limited and that risks of downward mobility are virtually negligible. Although this picture displays a noticeable degree of stability over time, a moderate increase of career fluidity across cohorts can be detected. Moreover, social origins and education exert a marked influence on the first occupation, while the subsequent career-adjustment of these initial social inequalities is rather limited. Furthermore, the small influence of origins and education on career opportunities does not display any systematic trend across cohorts.

Is university education worth the investment? The expectations of upper secondary school seniors and the role of family background

This study assesses students’ expectations about the profitability of the investment in university education. We consider Italy as a test case and provide fresh high-quality data on students’ expectations concerning the costs, economic returns and chances of success of this investment. These are compared with data on the corresponding actual values. We find that the estimates provided by upper secondary school seniors are highly inaccurate, highly uncertain and systematically biased. Students overestimate the returns to university degrees, while they are over-pessimistic regarding university costs and drop-out risks. These results confirm previous studies on perceived university costs, but they challenge the dominant view that students can realistically forecast graduate earnings. We trace this discrepancy to two methodological shortcomings of several previous studies on expected graduate earnings. Moreover, we find that information barriers are not equally distributed among social groups. High-status students overestimate the economic returns to university more, and they are more optimistic regarding their chances of success in Higher Education, even after allowing for their higher objective returns and chances of success. Our interpretation of the importance of information barriers focuses on the interaction between cognitive biases and institutional constraints.

CAREER MOBILITY IN ITALY: A growth curves analysis of occupational attainment in the twentieth century

ABSTRACT This article examines the role of social origins and education for career mobility in contemporary Italy by means of growth curves models. We find that opportunities for career advancement are rather limited and that risks of downward mobility are virtually negligible. Although this picture displays a noticeable degree of stability over time, a moderate increase of career fluidity across cohorts can be detected. Moreover, social origins and education exert a marked influence on the first occupation, while the subsequent career-adjustment of these initial social inequalities is rather limited. Furthermore, the small influence of origins and education on career opportunities does not display any systematic trend across cohorts.

Educational equalization stalled? Trends in inequality of educational opportunity between 1930 and 1980 across 26 European nations

ABSTRACT This article assesses trends over time in the influence of social origins on educational attainment in 26 European countries. We use a cumulative dataset that merges the European Social Survey (waves 2002–2010), the International Social Survey Programme (1999, 2009) and the European Value Study (2008). Our contribution to the literature is threefold. First, we replicate as closely as possible the previous study by Breen et al. [(2009) ‘Nonpersistent in educational attainment: Evidence from eight European countries’, American Journal of Sociology 114: 1475–1521] and extend it to a larger set of countries and to more recent cohorts. Second, we reassess the argument that equalization does not involve Higher Education. Third, we consider whether our conclusions change if we use a more comprehensive measurement of social origins that jointly incorporates indicators of social class, social status and parental education. We detect a generalized reduction of educational inequalities in the post-war decades. When we focus on Higher Education, we still detect evidence of equalization, although to a lower extent. Our analyses do not support the claim that, when using a more comprehensive treatment of social origins, the patterns for different indicators evolve in opposite directions.

“You Better Move On”: Determinants and Labor Market Outcomes of Graduate Migration from Italy

After the Eurozone crisis, out-migration from southern Europe revived, mostly fed by the highly skilled young. Nevertheless, little is known about these new migrants, particularly regarding the determinants and payoffs of their moves. This study delves into the Italian case, drawing on a large representative sample of the 2011 graduation cohort. Multivariate analyses show that young people from upper-class families, foreign citizens, graduates in scientific and internationally oriented fields, and best-performing students are more likely to migrate. Moreover, compared to the “stayers,” graduate migrants enjoy more favorable outcomes in terms of wages, unemployment risks, access to skilled employment, and career satisfaction.

Nudging gender desegregation: a field experiment on the causal effect of information barriers on gender inequalities in higher education

ABSTRACT In this article, we propose and test a novel explanation for gender segregation in Higher Education that focuses on the misperceptions of economic returns to fields of study. We frame this explanation within the literature emphasizing the role of gender-stereotypical preferences and occupational plans, and we argue that counselling activities in school can play a crucial role in either reinforcing or countering the weight of these expressive mechanisms relative to more instrumental considerations involving occupational prospects of different fields. In particular, we suggest that the availability of reliable, ready-to-use information on these prospects enhances the probability that students, particularly females, opt for more rewarding fields. To test this argument, we present the results of a field experiment conducted in Italy that confronted high school seniors with detailed information concerning returns to tertiary education and field of study differentials, and we assess how girls and boys reacted to this counselling intervention.

Social origins, relative risk aversion and track choice: A field experiment on the role of information biases

This study develops and tests the hypothesis that information biases concerning the perceived extent of risk of educational options fuel social inequalities in track choice. In particular, it is argued that low-educated families are more concerned than college-educated families with the risks of dropout in the academic track, even when their children perform well at school. Moreover, they overestimate the risks of low occupational outcomes associated with academic diplomas. These information biases enhance their propensity to select vocational tracks, which are perceived as safer options, even when their children have the potential to succeed in the academic path. Survey data from Italy were used to assess these misperceptions and experimental evidence is presented concerning their causal effect on track choices. To correct these misperceptions, we designed a light information intervention, which was nested in a longitudinal survey to assess the impact of this intervention on students’ track choices. Both survey and experimental results corroborated our hypothesis that information biases contribute to social inequalities in track choice.

Social closure, micro-class immobility and the intergenerational reproduction of the upper class: a comparative study

This article assesses how processes of social closure enhance intergenerational immobility in the regulated professions and thus promote persistence at the top of the occupational hierarchy. We compare four European countries (GB, Germany, Denmark and Sweden) that differ considerably in their degree of professional regulation and in their broader institutional arrangements. We run log-linear and logistic regression models on a cumulative dataset based on three large-scale surveys with detailed and highly comparable information at the level of unit occupations. Our analyses indicate that children of licensed professionals are far more likely to inherit the occupation of their parents and that this stronger micro-class immobility translates into higher chances of persistence in the upper class. These results support social closure theory and confirm the relevance of a micro-class approach for the explanation of social fluidity and of its cross-national variations. Moreover, we find that, when children of professionals do not reproduce the micro-class of their parents, they still display disproportionate chances of persistence in professional employment. Hence, on the one hand, processes of social closure erect barriers between professions and fuel micro-class immobility at the top. On the other hand, the cultural proximity of different professional groups drives intense intergenerational exchanges between them. Our analyses indicate that these micro- and meso-class rigidities work as complementary routes to immobility at the top.