Abstract
The role education plays in the transmission of socio-economic inequalities has long been subject of much attention. In recent years, education sociologists have argued that education has become a strong mediator of social origin over time (Devine and Li, 2013). In this regard, Fabrizio Bernardi and Gabriele Ballarino, professors of sociology and economic sociology, respectively, attempt to answer a very disputed question in academic research: Is education the great equalizer?
One of the main objectives of the book, edited by Bernardi and Ballarino, is to analyse the relationship among an individual’s social origin, income and occupational outcomes and to understand the social origin–education– destination (OED) triangle which represents the basic processes reproducing intergenerational inequality (p. 2). This comparative study analyses the direct effects of social origin (DESO) in 14 countries: France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Japan, Norway, the Netherlands, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States of America, and explores ‘the phenomenon by which socio-economic inequality is transmitted from one generation to the next, even when two individuals have the same levels of education’ (p. 255).
In each chapter, the authors extensively explore relations between class of origin, occupational and educational expansion, and its variation by gender and at different stages of employment. Changes in the returns to education over time and the effects of social origin and their dependence on the individuals’ level of education are also discussed throughout. The findings for each study are laid out and analysed in their unique country-case-specific situation where educational participation, occupational structure and public sector are elements taken into consideration, adding depth to the analysis. Besides extensively examining the influence social background has on a person’s first job, the authors also question whether it affects subsequent occupations. An approximate answer is given to the question of whether DESO are weaker among the higher educated, whether there is a temporal decline in the direct effect of social origin and whether returns to education vary over time. Respecting national differences, each chapter uses a different measure of education.
Among the book’s most remarkable findings is the absence of consistent evidence of DESO decline over time, suggesting a negative answer to the question of whether education is the great equalizer. This is primarily because better-off families find different ways to influence the occupational achievement of their offspring over and above their achieved level of education (p. 276). Thus, investing in education is not a silver bullet to achieve social equality; reducing wealth and income inequality could contribute instead. It has also been argued that university education might act as the great equalizer, as a pattern has been identified of social origins no longer mattering for occupational attainment.
Another important finding arising from this collective research is the overall stability of the intergenerational occupational association. When the International Socio-Economic Index of Occupational Status (ISEI) is considered as occupational outcome, the direct effect of social origin on ISEI is overall stable, with the exception of Israel and France where it has increased. On the contrary, the direct effect of social origin on ISEI has declined in only two countries: the Netherlands and Sweden (p. 260). The social democratic policies and the welfare state model in both of these countries reflect their concern over increasing the economic security of the working class. The book opens up an interdisciplinary—social, economic and policy—discussion about the complex and evolving dynamics of striving for social equality.
The research presented in this collection is solely quantitative and based on surveys that are representative of each country (e.g., cross-sectional samples of the British Household Panel Survey for United Kingdom). Even though the approach taken is to understand the differences across countries, it would have benefited from qualitative methods to enrich explanations of social mobility and fluidity. While the book brings together an array of analysis in different settings in developed countries in America, Europe and Asia, it fails to include the Global South. The academic debates over the dominance of Western models of higher education (Alvares and Faruqi, 2012) could have strengthened the scope of this book further.
Despite these observations, this book successfully contributes to the on-going debate on the role of education in generating (in) equality. By challenging the preconceived notion of education as the great equalizer through comparative research conducted internationally, Bernardi and Ballarino shed new light on this issue with the first comparative project in the field of social stratification that combines the analysis of income together with that of occupation-based measures.
All in all, Bernardi and Ballarino’s book is highly recommended. It achieves what they set out to do, fills a gap in the literature on intergenerational socio-economic association among individuals with the same level of schooling and expands our understanding of the intergenerational transmission of advantage. The arguments presented in this book act as a source of reference for an academic audience and public policymakers focused on education initiatives. The clarity of its analysis will benefit students and the general readership alike.