Horizontal Advantage: Choice of Postsecondary Field of Study Among Children of Immigrants

Educational expansion has raised the influence of sorting across postsecondary educational fields on children's future life chances. Yet, little is known about horizontal ethnic stratification in the choice of field of study among children of immigrant parents, whose parents often have moderate...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Demography 2023-08, Vol.60 (4), p.1031-1058
Main Authors: Borgen, Solveig Topstad, Hermansen, Are Skeie
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Academic disciplines
Ambition
Careers
Children
Descendants
Disadvantaged
Economics
Education
Ethnicity
European cultural groups
Field of study
Higher education
Horizontal stratification
Immigrant optimism
Immigrant selectivity
Immigrants
Life chances
Parenthood education
Parents
Parents & parenting
Population Studies
Postsecondary & nbsp
Sociology
Stratification
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Summary:Educational expansion has raised the influence of sorting across postsecondary educational fields on children's future life chances. Yet, little is known about horizontal ethnic stratification in the choice of field of study among children of immigrant parents, whose parents often have moderate absolute levels of education relative to native-born parents but tend to be positively selected on education relative to nonmigrants in the origin country. Using rich administrative data from Norway, we study the educational careers of immigrant descendants relative to the careers of children of native-born parents. Our results show that children of immigrants from non-European countries have a higher likelihood of entering higher education and enrolling in high-paying fields of study compared with children of natives, despite having poorer school grades and disadvantaged family backgrounds. However, immigrant parents' positive selectivity provides limited insight into why children of immigrants exhibit high ambitions later in their postsecondary educational careers. These findings document a persistent pattern of horizontal ethnic advantage in postsecondary education in which ambitious children of immigrants are more likely to enter into more prestigious and economically rewarding fields of study than their fellow students with native-born parents.
ISSN:0070-3370
1533-7790
1533-7790
DOI:10.1215/00703370-10823537