The Czech Sorting Machine: The Role of Educational Pathways on Czech Occupational and Class Attainment

• In Event: 4255 - Section on Economic Sociology Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 12. Status Characteristics and Wages

Abstract

This article introduces a new approach to the study of the association between education and socio-economic outcomes in the Czech Republic: educational pathways, which are the primary channels of study involving at least two educational transitions, which themselves have qualitatively different tracks. Based on Czech Household Panel Study data, we operationalize Czech educational pathways between secondary and tertiary education, and examine the role of eight different educational paths on ESeC-derived social classes. Based on the ordered logit model, we compute the predicted probability that specific educational pathways would lead to a specific class status, controlling for family background, gender and age. We find that the educational pathway approach yields distinct insights about the education-class link that would be masked had we studied only highest level of education attained. The educational pathway approach could, therefore, be a fruitful way to approach other areas of Czech social stratification research.

Author

• Michael Lee Smith, Economics Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences