Intergenerational socioeconomic mobility in Germany : How does it affect the educational attainment for second generation immigrant daughters?

Abstract: The aim of this thesis was to study the intergenerational socioeconomic mobility of second generation immigrant daughters in Germany, by measuring how the parents’ educational level affect their children’s education. By adding a gender equality index to the dataset, the aim was to create a more nuanced interpretation of the results, including how cultural views in the parents’ source country can affect the parental investments. The results imply that daughters seem to have a lower intergenerational mobility, in line with previous research. When interacting a gender equality index variable with the parents’ educational level the results suggested that a high educated father from a country with high gender equality will increase both his son’s and daughter’s educational attainment. On the other hand, a high educated mother from a country with high gender equality will instead decrease her son’s educational level. Furthermore, another interaction variable was generated to translate how the parents’ educational level affects second generation immigrant children but failed to produce estimates on a statistically significant level. Nonetheless, it is important to notice that the results implied that both sons and daughters have a lower educational level than their fathers, and that daughters have a lower educational attainment than their mothers. This suggests that second generation immigrant children do not outperform their parents, as previous research suggests.