Markus Klein
Sociologist
Publications
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Key points
– Two-thirds of pupils have consistently low absence trajectories,
while one-third demonstrate some form of moderate to high
absence trajectories over the compulsory schooling period.
– More than one-fourth of pupils have consistently moderate
authorised absences.
– Three smaller groups have moderately increased unauthorised,
strongly increasing authorised, and strongly increasing
unauthorised absences.
– All identified absence trajectories have a detrimental impact
on GCSE achievement in year 11, with increasing unauthorised
absences having the most harmful impact.
– While extreme levels of unauthorised absences are most
detrimental, a narrow policy focus on this absentee group will
miss many students with other absence trajectories, whose
impact is also harmful to achievement.
– The findings emphasise the need for a nuanced approach
to combating absenteeism, including tailored support for
students in different absence trajectory groups.
Open Access Version Available for Download
Abstract
Studies consistently show the detrimental effect of school absences on pupils’ achievement. However, due to an accumulation of multiple risks, school absenteeism may be more harmful to achievement among pupils from lower socioeconomic status (SES). Using a sample of upper-secondary students from the Scottish Longitudinal Study (n = 3,135), we investigated whether the association between absences (overall, sickness, and truancy) and achievement in high-stakes exams varied by family SES dimensions (parental education, class, free school meal registration, and housing). The findings for overall absences and truancy show no statistically significant differences across SES groups. However, sickness absences were more harmful to the achievement of lower SES students than higher SES students. Differences between the most and least disadvantaged groups were found on all SES dimensions except for parental education.
Open access published version available for download
Abstract
This article hypothesizes that maternal occupation-specific skills are associated with children’s cognitive development over and above parents’ other human, financial and social capital. Data from the UK Millennium Cohort Study on 13,543 children were complemented with occupation-level data (n = 79) from the British Skills Surveys on aggregate measures of mothers’ occupation-specific skills (literacy, numeracy, problem-solving, verbal and physical). We did not find any association between maternal occupation-specific skills and children’s non-verbal ability (inductive reasoning, spatial awareness) at age five when conditioning on covariates. However, mothers’ verbal skills (e.g. presentation skills) were positively associated with children’s verbal ability (Naming Vocabulary) over and above other parental resources. By contrast, mothers’ physical skills (e.g. use of physical strength) were negatively associated with children’s verbal abilities. Albeit effect sizes are small, maternal occupation-specific skills contribute to social stratification in children’s verbal development net of human, financial and social capital.
Open Access Version Available for Download
Abstract
This article investigates whether gender differences in children’s math, reading, and behavior problems vary across mothers’ education and family structure. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth-Children and Young Adults (N > 6,200; age range = 5–14; 51 percent female; 30 percent Black, 20 percent Hispanic, and 50 percent other ethnic backgrounds), we hypothesized that boys growing up with less educated mothers and in single-parent families may lag behind girls more significantly in reading and behavior problems. They may be less ahead in math than their peers from more advantaged backgrounds. Our findings demonstrate this heterogeneity of gender differences by maternal education but not by family structure. This may indicate that cultural norms associated with gender play a significant role in explaining the observed heterogeneity across family circumstances. We replicated these findings for academic achievement using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Kindergarten Class 1998–1999.
Open Access Publication Available for Download
Studies consistently show associations between school absences and academic achievement. However, questions remain about whether this link depends on the reason for children’s absence. Using a sample of the Scottish Longitudinal Study (n = 4,419), we investigated whether the association between school absenteeism and achievement in high-stakes exams at the end of compulsory and postcompulsory schooling varies with the reason for absence. In line with previous research, our findings show that overall absences are negatively associated with academic achievement at both school stages. Likewise, all forms of absences (truancy, sickness absence, exceptional domestic circumstances, and family holidays) are negatively associated with achievement at the end of compulsory and postcompulsory schooling. First difference regressions confirm these negative associations, except for family holidays. These findings suggest that, in addition to lost instruction, other mechanisms such as behavioral, health-related, and psychosocial pathways may account for the association between absenteeism and achievement. The findings have implications for designing tailored absenteeism interventions to improve pupils’ academic achievement.
Author accepted manuscript available for download
Abstract
The literature on social stratification has paid considerable attention to whether and to what extent attending prestigious universities is advantageous for graduates’ labor market returns. This paper contributes to the literature by applying a more dynamic perspective in asking whether graduates from prestigious and less prestigious universities differ in their career progression across fourteen years since labor market entry. It further investigates whether graduating from prestigious universities pays off more or less for graduates from different educational backgrounds. The positive selection hypothesis suggests that students most likely to attend prestigious universities will benefit the most. The negative selection hypothesis suggests the opposite. Using multilevel growth curve modeling and the 1970 British Cohort Study (N = 939), the findings show no discernible differences in occupational prestige between graduates from diverse universities. If at all, there is a small Russell Group premium restricted to the early working career. This early Russell Group premium is only found among first-generation graduates providing evidence for the negative selection hypothesis.
A previous version of the paper was published as a working paper in the Working Paper Series of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course at the University of Queensland.
Open Access Publication Available for Download
School absenteeism is detrimental to life course outcomes and is known to be socioeconomically stratified. However, the link between socioeconomic status (SES) and school absence is complex given the multidimensional nature of both family SES (e.g., income, education, occupational status) and absenteeism (e.g., truancy, sickness, suspension). Despite the vast literature on socioeconomic inequalities in school attendance, no systematic review on SES and school absenteeism exists. This study systematically reviewed and provides a narrative synthesis of journal articles (n = 55) published between 1998 to 2019 on the association between SES dimensions and forms of absenteeism. The majority of studies from high-income contexts found an association between SES and absenteeism in the expected direction, albeit on average with small effect sizes. Studies largely confirmed these findings among populations at risk of school absence and those from low- and middle-income countries. There was greater evidence for an association between absenteeism and SES measured at the family than the school level. Studies using SES measures of financial resources (e.g., free or reduced-price lunch) provided more evidence for this association than studies measuring sociocultural resources (e.g., parental education). We found limited evidence that socioeconomic gaps in absenteeism vary by the reasons for absence. Research on the mediating pathways between SES and absenteeism is sparse. A key implication is that attempts to address inequalities in educational outcomes must include tackling SES gaps in school attendance.
Key Points
- Student absences after the first wave of Covid-19 school closures were higher than in previous years
- Higher rates of absenteeism after school lockdown were due to COVID-19 related reasons
- Overall, non-Covid-19-related absence rates are similar to trends observed in earlier years
- Socioeconomic inequalities in school absenteeism were higher post-lockdown than in previous years
- This increase can be attributed to rising disparities in school absenteeism due to Covid-19-related and non-Covid-19 reasons
- The rise in socioeconomic inequality in non-Covid-19related absenteeism was not only due to higher absence rates among students from the most deprived areas but also due to lower absence rates among students from the least deprived areas
- Addressing the disproportionate short- and long-term impact of the pandemic on the most vulnerable children needs to be at the forefront of policy agenda
- We need greater monitoring and evaluation of
- inequalities in home learning during the second round of school closures
- inequalities in academic achievement after school reopening
- policy interventions designed to mitigate the consequences of Covid-19 on achievement gaps.
Open access published version available for download
The social stratification literature is inconclusive about whether there is a direct effect of grandparent resources on grandchildren’s educational outcomes net of parental characteristics. Some of this heterogeneity may be due to differences in omitted variable bias at the parental level. Our article accounts for a more extensive set of parent characteristics and explores the mediating role of parental cognitive ability in more detail. It further tackles methodological challenges (treatmentinduced mediator–outcome confounders, treatment–mediator interaction) in assessing any direct influences of grandparents by using a regression-with-residuals approach. Using the 1970 British Cohort Study, our results show that the direct effect of grandparent education on grandchildren’s verbal and numerical ability is small and statistically nonsignificant. Parental cognitive ability alone can account for more than two-thirds (numerical ability) or half (verbal ability) of the overall grandparent effect. These findings stress the importance of cognitive ability for intergenerational social mobility processes.
Working Paper available for download
Kühhirt, M., & Klein, M. (2018). The social stratification of early TV consumption and children’s cognitive, language and behavioral development. Life Course Working Paper Series. University of Queensland, Queensland, Australia
Abstract
The association between television exposure and children’s development is subject to controversial debates. Heavy television exposure may be detrimental to children by overstimulating their developing brains. It may also infringe on time that children would otherwise spend on more developmentally beneficial activities or parental interactions. In the present analysis, we use data from the 2004/5 birth cohort of the Growing Up in Scotland study to investigate relations between hours of weekly television measured around the ages two to four and as average over this time span with children’s linguistic, cognitive, and behavioral outcomes around age five. Our analysis shows differences in the level and growth of television exposure by parental education. However, we did not find any substantive associations between television exposure and children’s cognitive or language ability. We found small associations of television exposure with conduct problems and prosocial behavior, particularly for children of less educated parents. Overall, the results suggest that the impact of television on children’s development is less pronounced than often assumed.
Open access published version available for download
Abstract
In this article, we investigated whether and to what extent various dimensions of socioeconomic background (parental education, parental class, free school meal registration, housing status, and neighborhood deprivation) predict overall school absences and different reasons for absenteeism (truancy, sickness, family holidays and temporary exclusion) among 4,620 secondary school pupils in Scotland. Students were drawn from a sample of the Scottish Longitudinal Study comprising linked Census data and administrative school records. Using fractional logit models and logistic regressions, we found that all dimensions of socioeconomic background were uniquely linked to overall absences. Multiple measures of socioeconomic background were also associated with truancy, sickness-related absence, and temporary exclusion. Social housing and parental education had the most pervasive associations with school absences across all forms of absenteeism. Our findings highlight the need to consider the multidimensionality of socioeconomic background in policy and research decisions on school absenteeism. A more explicit focus on narrowing the socioeconomic gap in absenteeism is required to close the inequality gap in educational and post-school outcomes.
Open access published version available for download
Abstract
Research on stratification and mobility has consistently shown that in the UK there is a direct impact of social origin on occupational destination net of educational attainment even for degree‐holders. However, only a few studies applied a longitudinal and dynamic perspective on how intergenerational mobility shapes graduates’ working careers. Using multilevel growth curve modelling and data from the 1970 British cohort study (BCS70), we contribute to this research by looking at the emergence of social inequalities during the first ten years since labour market entry. We further distinguish between graduates of different fields of study as we expect social disparities to develop differently due to differences in initial occupational placement and upward mobility processes. We find that parental class does not affect occupational prestige over and above prior achievement. Separate analyses by the field of study show that initial differences in occupational prestige and career progression do not differ between graduates from different classes of origin in STEM fields, and arts and humanities. It is only in the social sciences that working‐class graduates start with lower occupational prestige but soon catch up with their peers from higher classes. Overall, our results indicate no direct effect of social origin on occupational attainment for degree‐holders once we broaden our focus to a dynamic life course perspective.
Open access published version available for download
Abstract
Diversity in education systems, and broader political and economic conditions, are commonly credited with international variation in inequality of educational opportunity (IEO). Comparing East and West Germany before reunification allows us to investigate whether vastly different political, economic and educational systems led to differences in IEO. Post-reunification, East Germany adopted the West’s systems and experienced an economic recession. IEO had been smaller in East than in West Germany but was on an upward trajectory before reunification. After 1990, IEO in East Germany converged to the West German level as a result of decreased IEO in the West and increasing levels in the East. Post-reunification convergence suggests differences in political context and education policy are crucial for IEO.
Preprint available for download
Abstract
This study investigates the relationship between early maternal employment history and children’s vocabulary and inductive reasoning ability at age 5, drawing on longitudinal information on 2,200 children from the Growing Up in Scotland data. Prior research rarely addresses dynamics in maternal employment and the methodological ramifications of time-variant confounding. The present study proposes various measures to capture duration, timing, and stability of early maternal employment and uses inverse probability of treatment weighting to control for time-variant confounders that may partially mediate the effect of maternal employment on cognitive scores. The findings suggest only modest differences in the above ability measures between children with similar observed covariate history but who have been exposed to very different patterns of early maternal employment.
Open access published version available for download
Abstract
Over the course of higher education expansion and growing numbers of graduates, employers are supposed to have increasing difficulties to regard a higher education degree as reliable signal for productivity. As a consequence, they may take into account ‘qualitative’ differences such as graduates’ field of study more often than in previous times when hiring labour market entrants. Both from a supply- and demand-side perspective graduates from humanities, social services or arts may be increasingly disadvantaged in terms of labour market outcomes compared to graduates from science, technology, engineering and mathematics over time. The article tests this argumentation by assessing changes in the relationship between graduates’ field of study and risk of unemployment as well as access to the service class in West Germany between 1980 and 2008. Changes in returns to field of study may contribute to growing (social) inequalities among graduates amidst educational expansion and are therefore important to consider. Based on Microcensus data, the results show that field of study differences in terms of both labour market outcomes did not increasingly diverge over time. The paper concludes that due to a limited educational expansion and the prevalence of an occupationally segmented labour market higher education remains a good investment in terms of labour market returns in West Germany irrespective of graduates’ field of study.
Postprint available for download
Abstract
This article considers changes in the association between educational attainment and occupational prestige in Germany over time. We argue that the link between attainment and occupational prestige has become weaker over time because of compositional changes in graduate occupational destinations. Prior to higher education expansion, the small elite group of graduates tended to access the occupationally closed and thus more prestigious professions on graduation. As higher education participation expanded, however, an increasing proportion of graduates found employment in less prestigious and more diverse graduate jobs. The results confirm our theoretical expectations. The association between educational attainment and occupational prestige has decreased over time as graduates entered a broader range of jobs and their relative advantage over those with lower levels of qualifications decreased. This can, in fact, be attributed to a merely compositional change among graduates’ occupational destinations from prestigious professions towards less prestigious free-market graduate occupations.
Open access published version available for download
Abstract
This paper examines the relative importance of upper secondary subject choice and attainment in explaining social inequalities in access to higher education (HE) in Scotland and Ireland. These two countries differ in the extent of curriculum differentiation, in the degree of standardisation in school examination and in HE entry criteria. In particular, in Scotland subject choice in upper secondary education is more differentiated (both in terms of number and type of subjects taken) and allocation of places in HE is less standardised and more dependent upon the subjects studied at school than in Ireland. Given these institutional differences, we expected subject choices to be more important for explaining social origin differences in HE entry and access to prestigious institutions in Scotland than in Ireland. Because of increasing student competition for HE places, we further hypothesised the growing importance of school subjects over time in mediating social inequalities in HE entry in both countries, more so in Scotland than in Ireland. Our results confirm that subject choice is a stronger mediator of social inequalities in HE entry and access to prestigious universities in Scotland while attainment is more important in Ireland. Contrary to our expectations, the role of subject choice in HE entry has not become more important over time. However, in Scotland subject choice continues to be a strong mediator for social inequalities in HE entry.
Postprint available for download
Abstract
This paper addresses trends in education-specific unemployment risks at labor market entry in West Germany from the mid-1970s to the present. In line with previous research it shows that vocationally qualified school-leavers have relatively lower unemployment risks than school-leavers with general education. Over time, the gap in unemployment risks between the low-educated and medium- and highly educated labor market entrants substantially widened for both sexes. The literature identifies two different mechanisms for this trend: structural or cyclical crowding out. While in the former scenario low-educated become increasingly unemployed due to an oversupply of tertiary graduates and displacement from above, in the latter their relative unemployment risk varies with the business cycle. The results provide evidence for cyclical rather than structural crowding-out in West Germany. Since macroeconomic conditions became generally worse over time, this strongly explains the widening unemployment gap between the low-educated and all other education groups.
Open access published version available for download
Abstract
This article examines the impact of social origin on tertiary graduates’ labour market outcomes in Germany and the United Kingdom, two distinct countries in terms of higher education systems, labour market structures, and their linkages. Data from the 2005 REFLEX survey, OLS regression and linear probability models are used to analyse the effect of parental education on graduates’ occupational destinations at two time points: at labour market entry and five years after graduation. We test various hypotheses on country variation (i) in the strength of association between origin and occupational destinations, (ii) in the mechanisms by which social origin affects occupational destinations (i.e. via qualitative education differences), and (iii) in the extent to which social origin matters at different career stages. The results show that parental education effects are similar in the two countries when occupational destinations are analysed using the International Socio-Economic Index of Occupational Status (ISEI). They substantially differ when the analyses focus on entry into the higher-service class. In this latter case, both the gross and the net effects of parental education are stronger in the United Kingdom than in Germany. However, country differences in parental education effects reduce when graduates’ occupational outcomes are analysed 5 years after graduation.
Postprint available for download
Abstract
Graduates from higher education often enter the labour market with a considerable amount of work experience. Using German data, we address the question of whether early work experience pays off upon labour market entry. We compare the labour market benefits of different types of work experience. This comparison allows us to more generally test hypotheses about different explanations of why education pays off. Results indicate that tertiary graduates do not profit from work experience that is unrelated to the field of study or was a mandatory part of the study programme. Even though field-related and voluntary work experience helps graduates to realize a fast integration into the labour market, it is not linked to higher chances for entering a favourable class position or to higher wages in the long run. These results provide evidence for the signalling explanation of educational benefits in the labour market rather than the human capital explanation.
Thesis available for download
Postprint available for download
Abstract
Mandatory internships are implemented in higher education curricula in order to ease the labour market integration of graduates. This article evaluates the utility of mandatory internships in Germany by assessing the effect on graduates’ transition from higher education to work. The authors examine whether these compulsory programmes provide extra benefits for graduates from families with lower educational backgrounds. Three different outcome variables are used to characterize the labour market entry: search duration until the first significant job, employment history complexity and wages five years after graduation. The results clearly indicate that compulsory internship programmes neither have a positive effect on labour market outcomes in general, nor are they particularly beneficial for graduates from lower educational backgrounds.
Open access published version available for download
Abstract
Der vorliegende Beitrag untersucht, ob sich das Einkommen und die berufliche
Position von Hochschulabsolventen aus unterschiedlichen Herkunftsfamilien unterscheiden.
Insbesondere bei Absolventen von „weichen“ Studienfächern wie den
Geisteswissenschaften sind stärkere Einflüsse der sozialen Herkunft zu erwarten als
bei Absolventen „harter“ Fächer wie den Ingenieur- und Naturwissenschaften. Die
empirischen Analysen basieren auf Daten der HIS-Absolventenbefragungen 1997
und 2001. Sowohl beim Einkommen als auch beim Erreichen einer Führungsposition
sind soziale Unterschiede vorhanden, diese lassen sich aber vollständig auf Prozesse
vor dem Studienabschluss zurückführen. Vor allem die sozial unterschiedliche Studienfachwahl,
der Studienverlauf sowie Promotion bzw. Promotionsabsicht beeinflussen
den Berufseinstieg und die ersten Erwerbsjahre. Lediglich in den klassischen Professionen
Medizin, Pharmazie und Rechtswissenschaften ist ein darüber hinausgehender
direkter Einfluss der sozialen Herkunft auf die berufliche Stellung erkennbar.
Abstract
The paper investigates long-term trends in the association between educational attainment and class destinations in Germany. Most recent evidence for several European countries reveals a downward effect of education on social class. To test changes in the association in Germany I use the 1976–2007 waves of the German Microcensus (GMC), which is a nationally representative, repeated cross-sectional survey. For Germany, log-linear models indicate that the relationship between education and class destinations remains rather constant for both sexes. I also find that returns to higher education in access to service class positions do not consistently decline either. Only university graduates’ relative access chances slightly decreased in comparison to Abitur-holders from the 1980s to the 1990s. In order to consider compositional changes in the service class in more detail, I further disaggregate the service class into three types of employment: administrative/managerial positions, professional experts and professional positions in the social services. In fact, I find that access to administrative and managerial positions is less dependent on education than access to the professions. While professional positions in the social services become less stratified by education over time, it is compensated by a reverse development for professional experts. As substantially more employees work in administrative and managerial jobs since the 1970s, the slight reduction in university returns can indeed be attributed to a compositional effect. In spite of these qualitative and quantitative changes, the strong impact of education on access to the service class does not become blurred. The paper concludes that the persistent institutional framework in Germany does not lead to a decline in the overall association between educational attainment and class destinations.
Open access published version available for download
Abstract
In diesem Artikel untersuchen wir den Einfluss sozialer Netzwerke bei der Jobfindung auf berufliche Erträge von Hochschulabsolventen beim Berufseinstieg in Deutschland. Im Gegensatz zu früheren Studien erweitern wir die Analyse, indem wir zwischen verschiedenen Typen von zur Jobfindung verfügbaren Netzwerken unterscheiden. In Übereinstimmung mit der Literatur, die sich auf den Einfluss von Beziehungskapital per se konzentriert, finden wir in unseren Analysen keine Effekte auf monetäre Erträge. Entgegen der Studie von Franzen & Hangartner (2005, 2006) ergeben sich jedoch in unseren Ergebnissen auch keine positiven Effekte auf die Adäquatheit der Stelle. Jobfindung über soziale Netzwerke erhöht sogar das Risiko einer Überqualifikation. Differenzieren wir soziales Kapital dagegen nach mehreren Arten von Netzwerktypen, z. B. danach ob Kontaktstrukturen durch berufliche Tätigkeiten während des Studiums, vermittelt über Eltern oder durch Freundschaften entstehen, ergibt sich ein vollkommen anderes Bild: Der Einfluss sozialer Netzwerke auf Eigenschaften der Arbeitsstelle unterscheidet sich in erheblichem Maße je nach der Art des Netzwerks und der Art des untersuchten Ertrags. Daraus schließen wir, dass ein homogener Effekt von Sozialkapital auf Arbeitsmarkterträge, insbesondere bei Hochschulabsolventen, nicht ersichtlich ist und folglich Studien aufschlussreicher sind, die sich auf die Wirkung bestimmter Netzwerkarten bzw. -ressourcen fokussieren.
Working paper available for download
Klein, M. Mechanisms for the Effect of Field of Study on the Transition from Higher Education to Work. Mannheimer Zentrum für Europäische Sozialforschung. Working Paper 130.
Abstract
This article addresses the question of why fields of study differ in early labour market returns. It is argued that the higher the potential training costs of a field of study the more problematic the labour market integration of graduates. This is due to the fact that employers use the occupational specificity and selectivity of a study programme as a signal for the expected training costs. In addition, the article suggests that structural relations between fields and occupations act as mediators for the effect of field of study on non-pecuniary returns. Using the German HIS Graduate Panel 1997, the results indicate that a lack of occupational specificity is partly responsible for differences between fields of study. Selectivity measures do not contribute to an explanation. As expected, working in the public sector and the required expertise for a job strongly mediate field of study differences.
