Pathways to College Majors: Decomposing the Effects of Family Background through High School STEM Experiences

• In Event: Sociology of Education Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 18. Paths to College Major Selection

Abstract

In an increasingly competitive job market, unequal economic outcomes for college graduates have come into sharp relief with field of study garnering the greatest attention. STEM majors appear to be especially advantaged, both in terms of employment prospects and income returns. Understanding how students choose these majors thus becomes paramount. Family background has been widely documented as a key factor in shaping the amount of education students attain, a vertical stratification outcome, but we know less about how background relates to the horizontal outcome of major choice. In this study, we introduce parental STEM background as a domain-specific measure of family background. Using data from the High School Longitudinal Study (HSLS:09–16), we examine how parental education, family income, and parental STEM background influence students’ college attendance and their selection of applied STEM, academic STEM, and non-STEM majors. Our findings show that 1) parental education and family income primarily affect college attendance but not major choice; 2) parental STEM background strongly predicts students’ choices across applied STEM, academic STEM, and non-STEM fields, particularly steering students toward more lucrative applied STEM majors; and 3) most of the influence of parental STEM background on major choice operates through direct mechanisms rather than through high school STEM experiences. These results highlight the importance of domain-specific dimensions of family background in shaping students’ educational pathways and major choices.

Authors

• Jingzhi Guo, University of Connecticut

• Simon Cheng, University of Connecticut

• Mary J. Fischer, University of Connecticut