Cultural Capital, Gender and Intergenerational Educational Mobility in Post-Communist Space

Abstract

Post-communist transition in Eastern Europe has affected social stratification and mobility. There is an argument that transition undermined the role of parental cultural capital and increased the importance of parental economic capital in determining the educational mobility of children. In this paper, we examine whether the parental cultural capital has played a role in educational mobility of cohorts born in 1970–1984 and what has been the contribution of the different states of cultural capital. We also consider the gender heterogeneity in the transmission of educational advantage. The study focuses on one country of Eastern Europe—Lithuania, which underwent the transition to a radical neo-liberal form of capitalism. Using data from the Families and Inequalities Survey of 2019, we apply the descriptive and ordinal regression analysis. The results indicate intergenerational educational upward mobility for women. All states of parental cultural capital (objectified, embodied, institutionalized) are relevant for the educational attainment of the transitional cohort. The effects are more pronounced for women, at least in relation to some states of parental cultural capital. On a more general level, the findings imply that the intergenerational reproduction of educational attainment was not substantially altered by the transition, at least during its initial decades.