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Evidence from the EU-SILC standard survey
One other source of evidence is the standard data included in the EU-SILC. Because of the household nature of the survey, the data allow the education status of young people living with their parents to be compared to that of their parents. This comparison, of course, can be made only for young people still living in the family home. This raises the possibility that the findings could be biased one way or the other, insofar as those no longer living at home might have different characteristics. Since there are differences of this kind for those aged 16-29 (the age group on which the analysis focuses) between those living at home and those no longer at home, the possibility of bias cannot be excluded.
On average across the EU, some 65% of young people aged 16-29 still live with their parents, according to the EU-SILC for 2007; the proportion varies from over 86% in Slovenia and Slovakia to 38% in Finland and Sweden, and 34% in Denmark. However, except for in those three Nordic countries, plus France, the Netherlands and the UK, the proportion still living at home is over 60% in all countries. In most Member States, therefore, the great majority of young people of this age live with their parents; accordingly, in these terms, they make up a large enough sample on which to carry out the analysis (though the variation in the proportions involved could affect comparability of the results). In countries where the proportion is relatively small, though, the findings might not be representative of young people as a whole.
Given that many young people in this age group are in education or initial vocational training, and accordingly are still in the process of acquiring qualifications, the approach adopted in order to maximise the number of observations is to group young people into three categories for the purposes of the analysis:
- The first group consists of those no longer receiving education or training who have no qualifications beyond basic schooling.
- The second group consists of both those who have attained upper-secondary level qualifications and are no longer receiving education or training and those who are in the process of acquiring upper-secondary qualifications (in the sense that they are engaged in an education or training programme at this level).
- The third group consists of those who have attained tertiary-level qualifications or are studying at this level.
The underlying assumption is that those who are undertaking education or training programmes at a particular level either successfully complete these programmes or, if they do not, that the same proportion of students with highly educated parents will fail as students with poorly educated parents - in other words, that drop-outs do not bias the results one way or the other.
The results show that, in all countries, young people with at least one parent who has tertiary education are more likely to attain tertiary education themselves (or be in the process of so doing) than those whose parents have no qualifications beyond basic schooling (Table 5, in which the education of parents relates to the highest level of education attained by either the father or the mother).
The difference is particularly marked in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Slovakia and Poland - all countries where the odds that those with parents who have a tertiary level of education will attain that level themselves were shown by the EU-SILC special module to be high, relative to those young people whose parents had only a low education level (Table 1). The odds are also high, however, in Estonia and Austria - countries that had below-average odds according to the module. At the same time, the difference in probability between the two groups of people of attaining tertiary-level education is relatively small in Denmark (the only country where the probability is higher for those with poorly educated parents than it is for those with tertiary-educated parents, though the population examined may well not be representative), Finland and the Netherlands. This is in line with the findings from the module. On the other hand, the difference is also small in Cyprus, and this was not the case according to the module.
Given that many of those in the age group who have acquired tertiary qualifications are likely no longer to be living with their parents, and that very few of those below 18 will be undertaking a course of tertiary education, a more satisfactory comparison may be to focus on those with at least upper-secondary education (or who are studying towards this level). (This includes those with, or studying for, tertiary qualifications.) Although the difference in probability between those with tertiary-educated and poorly educated parents is clearly going to be smaller, it is nevertheless the case that the odds of attaining at least upper-secondary qualifications are much higher for those with tertiary-educated parents in most countries. This is especially true of the three Baltic States, Portugal and Germany. This is broadly in line with the above findings, in the sense that all these countries have above-average odds ratios in respect of tertiary education.
