Intergenerational effects of further vocational training in Germany

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the influence of unemployed parents’ further vocational training on their children’s future apprenticeship and employment opportunities. We focus on households receiving means-tested benefits in Germany and investigate whether parents’ further vocational training helps avoid an intergenerational transmission of unemployment. Parents’ further vocational training can affect children’s future apprenticeship and employment opportunities directly, for instance by raising the value attributed to education and training within the family. Indirect effects via parents’ improved employment opportunities are possible as well. The sample consists of adolescents who were 14–17 years old when their parents participated in a further vocational training programme. We evaluate apprenticeship and employment outcomes for the young adults at ages 17–23 using entropy balancing methods on the basis of rich large-scale register data. Our findings indicate significantly positive effects of parents’ further vocational training on children’s apprenticeship enrolment but non-significant or negative effects on children’s regular employment at young ages. Moreover, mediation analysis gives evidence that these effects are partly mediated via an increase in parents’ own employment opportunities. Overall, our analyses indicate that parents’ further vocational training improves the qualifications of the next generation as well.

RÉSUMÉ

Cet article analyse l’influence des formations continues suivies par des parents sans emploi sur les opportunités d’apprentissage et d’emploi futures de leurs enfants. Nous nous concentrons sur des ménages percevant des prestations liées aux ressources en Allemagne et nous penchons sur la question de savoir si la formation continue des parents contribue à éviter une transmission intergénérationnelle du chômage. La formation continue des parents peut avoir une influence directe sur les opportunités d’apprentissage et d’emploi futures des enfants : elle peut notamment augmenter l’importance accordée à l’éducation et à la formation au sein de la famille. Une incidence indirecte par une amélioration des opportunités d’emploi des parents est aussi possible. L’échantillonnage se compose d’adolescents âgés de 14 à 17 ans, dont les parents ont participé à un programme de formation continue. Nous évaluons les débouchés d’apprentissage et d’emploi pour les jeunes adultes âgés de 17 à 23 ans à l’aide de méthodes de pondération entropique sur la base de données de registres à grande échelle complètes. Nos conclusions mettent en évidence des effets positifs significatifs des formations continues suivies par les parents sur le programme d’apprentissage des enfants, mais des effets non significatifs ou négatifs sur l’emploi régulier des enfants à un jeune âge. De plus, l’analyse de médiation révèle que ces effets sont partiellement liés à une augmentation des opportunités d’emploi des parents. De manière générale, les analyses réalisées montrent que la formation continue des parents améliore également les qualifications de la génération suivante.

KEYWORDS:

• Intergenerational mobility
• unemployment
• training
• welfare benefits
• labour market policy
• Germany

MOTS-CLÉS:

• Mobilité intergénérationnelle
• chômage
• formation
• prestations sociales
• politique de marché du travail
• Allemagne

Acknowledgements

We are very grateful to Silke Anger, Bob Hart, Barbara Hofmann, Malte Reichelt, Rüdiger Wapler, Jürgen Wiemers, Joachim Wolff, as well as two anonymous reviewers for very helpful comments and advice.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Cordula Zabel is a senior research scientist at the Institute for Employment Research in Nuremberg, Germany. She was a PhD student at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock and received her PhD in Demography from the University of Rostock in 2006. Her research interests are in the fields of household dynamics, labour market transitions, and social policy.

Eva Kopf is a senior research scientist at the Department for Senior Citizens and Intergenerational Affairs of the City of Nuremberg, Germany. She previously worked at the Institute for Employment Research in Nuremberg. She received her PhD in Economics from the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg in 2011. Her research interests are in the fields of social policy, household divisions of labour, care of the elderly and intergenerational affairs.