Obrazovanje roditelja, materijalni status i rano napuštanje školovanja u Hrvatskoj: trendovi u proteklom desetljeću
Parental Education, Income Level and Early School Leaving in Croatia: Trends of the Last Decade

Summary/Abstract: The connection between parental social status and education success of their children makes for one of the basic tenets of sociology of education and social mobility theories. Despite being explained by various social mechanisms and showing significant variation among countries and periods, this tie has been regularly established by empirical research. However, in Croatia social inequalities in education have barely been explored for the entire transitional period. This paper is based on Labor Force Survey microdata for the 1999–2008 period. It explores association between parental resources and early school leaving outcomes within the context of ongoing educational expansion in Croatia. The key question being explored is whether the effect of financial and educational status of the family on educational outcomes has increased or decreased during late postcomunist transition. The provided analyses of basic models and alternative specifications based upon a decade of LFS data give clear and robust evidence about the association between a low level of parental education and low household income level with a high risk of early school leaving. Also, both administrative and survey data point at the time trend of decreasing incidence of early school leaving that cannot be explained solely in terms of compositional effect of changing parental educational structure. Throughout the late transitional period no clear trend of either increase or decrease of association between family background and educational outcomes was found. Instead, there are clues that risk is becoming concentrated among those close to the bottom of the educational and income structure, while among others there is evidence for a trend of convergence towards saturation in upper secondary education participation.

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