The education effect on income across two generations in EU welfare states

By utilizing EU-SILC 2011 microdata and employing regression techniques in four EU welfare states (i.e., Greece, France, Ireland and Sweden), this paper demonstrates the diminishing education effect on income attainments between two generations. This finding puts into doubt the main argument of the mainstream academic and political discourse over the prominent role of education for income acquisition. Instead, this paper stresses the importance of other factors explaining income attainments, such as social interconnectivity. The latter can produce or reproduce inequality as long as people gain access to powerful positions through the usage of social connections. Thus, the upper social classes with extended social networking preserve their social privileges across generations despite the argument that the contemporary society boasts high social mobility attained through formal education