Educational Fields of Study and the Intergenerational Mobility Process in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

This article examines the importance of educational field of study, in addition to educational level, for explaining intergenerational class mobility in four countries: France, Germany, the UK and the Netherlands. Starting from standard models that only include educational level, we increase the complexity of the educational measure by differentiating between fields of study within levels. Contrary to our expectations, including field of study does not substantially reduce the partial effect of class origin on class destination. This seems to be due to the limited association between class origin and field choice, and between field choice and class destination. Implications for stratification and mobility studies are discussed.