Social Inequalities in Early School Leaving: The Role of Educational Institutions and the Socioeconomic Context

Abstract

Reducing the number of early school leavers, those who quit education without at least a high school degree, is a key objective of educational policy throughout Europe. Previous research has shown that in particular youngsters from disadvantaged families face relatively high risks of school dropout. In this paper we use data from the 2009 ad hoc module of the Labour Force Survey to examine how macro-level determinants influence school dropout risks among different social groups. Our results indicate that both the design of the educational system (tracking age, extent of vocational education) and characteristics of the socioeconomic context (poverty rate, unemployment patterns) have an impact on the social distribution of school dropout risk.

Notes

¹Another recent dataset which contains data on parental background and qualification level is PIAAC, a survey organized by the OECD in 22 countries (both from inside and outside Europe; OECD, 2013). Moreover, this dataset contains measures on the skill level of respondents. However, we prefer to use the Labour Force Survey module because this has information on all European Union member states and because sample sizes for the corresponding cohorts are on average about five times larger.

²Note that this definition differs from the official definition of Early School Leaving (EU-ESL) by the European Commission (European Commission, 2010b), as explained by De Witte et al. (2013). In fact, EU-ESL refers to a subset of ESL as we define it here; the official definition counts only those ESL who did not participate in any kind of nonformal training in the 4 weeks before the survey. Nonformal training refers here to all courses, seminars, conferences, private lessons, or instructions outside the regular education system, both job-related and for personal purposes. There are two problems with this official definition (see De Witte et al., 2013). First, the primary policy target is lack of qualifications, not the occasional participation in non-formal training, which is so broadly defined that it includes also small courses for personal purposes that are far less important in terms of long-term consequences. Second, because nonformal training refers to such a vaguely defined spectrum, this component is likely to generate extra noise in the figures.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jeroen Lavrijsen

Jeroen Lavrijsen is a senior research associate at HIVA–KU Leuven (Research Institute for Work and Society). He investigates the effect of educational system design in the medium-long term (acquisition of qualifications, transition to the labour market) with special attention to patterns of social inequality in these processes.

Ides Nicaise

Prof. Dr. Ides Nicaise works as a research manager at HIVA–KU Leuven (Research Institute for Work and Society). His research focuses on the economics of education as well as on poverty and social exclusion.