Is Child Like Parent? Educational Attainment and Ethnic Origin

Abstract

The speed at which immigrants assimilate is the subject of debate. Human capital formation plays a major role in this discussion. We compare second generation immigrants' educational attainments to those of similarly aged natives. Evidence from German data suggests ethnicity matters: ethnic network size has a positive effect on educational attainment, and a clear pattern is exhibited between countries-of-origin and education even in the second generation. For children of the foreign-born, parental schooling plays no role in educational choices. For Germans, contrary to the literature's general findings, there is a statistically significant difference in favor of father's over mother's education.