Education as a social equalizer?

New paper out by Alina Schmitz

11/26/2025

This study examines whether parental education is related to income among older workers and whether this association varies across welfare regimes. While education is often viewed as a social equalizer, family background may still influence economic outcomes in later life. The study explores how societal contexts moderate inequalities related to family origins.

Using wave 9 (2021/2022) of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), the analysis focuses on individuals aged 50–65 years from 8 countries, grouped into social democratic (Sweden, Denmark, Finland) and conservative (Austria, Germany, France, Belgium, Luxembourg) regimes. The outcome is annual earnings from (self-)employment and the key predictor is parental education. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions were run separately by regime, controlling for job characteristics and sociodemographic covariates.

Parental education was unrelated to income in social democratic regimes but middle and high parental education (compared to low parental education) was positively associated with income in conservative regimes. Inequalities in financial well-being in later life cannot be fully understood without considering intergenerational dynamics and the broader institutional context in which they unfold. Income in later life is shaped by family origin at least in conservative welfare regimes.

The paper is available here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00391-025-02475-9