BackgroundOngoing interest in the relationships between family background and adult outcomes is motivated by concerns regarding the intergenerational transmission of advantage/disadvantage. Currently all countries are far from achieving the ideal that all individuals, irrespective of their starting points or their demographic characteristics, are able to accumulate sufficient human capital so that they can achieve success in the workplace and fulfill their responsibilities as family members and as citizens. This study quantifies the length of the shadow cast by family background and personal characteristics on an individual’s prospects in the labor market. It also examines the extent to which these relationships are mediated by factors more proximal to labor market entry.MethodsThis study uses data for 21 OECD countries from the first round of PIAAC. It employs descriptive statistics, correlations and logistic regression. Two dichotomous variables are derived from each country’s national annual income distribution: Q1 = 1 if the individual’s income is in the first (lower) quartile and Q4 = 1 if the individual works full-time and whose income is in the fourth (upper) quartile. For each country, a nested sequence of logistic regression models are fit to ascertain the role of more proximal factors in mediating the impact of family background and demographic characteristics on these labor market outcomes.ResultsThe patterns of relationships are qualitatively similar across the 21 countries, although the estimated associations vary greatly in strength. Parental education accounts for substantial proportions of the variation in respondents’ Educational Attainment and Cognitive Skills. In most countries, children born to parents with lower levels of education have less than a fifty–fifty chance of exceeding that level. Family background is strongly associated with income, but the relationship is largely mediated by Educational Attainment and Cognitive Skills. Females and younger individuals have much higher odds of being in the lower quartile and much lower odds of reaching the upper quartile, even after adjusting for other variables. The magnitudes of these adjusted odds are concerning.ConclusionsFamily background and gender cast a long shadow on individuals’ life prospects. Countries vary greatly in their success in mitigating these disadvantages. Formulating effective policies will depend on understanding a complex set of dynamics that surely differ among countries.

中文翻译：

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阴影多久了？家庭背景与某些成人结局的关系：PIAAC的结果

背景技术对家庭背景与成人结局之间关系的持续关注是由于对优势/劣势的代际传递的关注。当前，所有国家都远未实现所有人都不论其起点或人口特征如何能够积累足够的人力资本，以使他们能够在工作场所取得成功并履行其作为家庭成员和公民的职责的理想。这项研究量化了家庭背景和个人特征对劳动力市场中个人前景所造成的阴影长度。它还检查了这些关系在多大程度上由更接近劳动力市场准入的因素所介导。方法本研究使用了来自PIAAC第一轮的21个OECD国家的数据。它采用描述性统计，相关性和逻辑回归。从每个国家的国家年度收入分布中得出两个二元变量：如果个人的收入在第一个（较低的）四分位数中，则Q1 = 1；如果个人全职工作且收入在第四个（较高的）四分位数中，则Q4 = 1 。对于每个国家，都适合使用嵌套的logistic回归模型序列来确定更多近端因素在调解家庭背景和人口统计学特征对这些劳动力市场成果的影响中的作用。尽管在21个国家中，关系的模式在质量上相似，但是估计的关联强度差异很大。父母教育占受访者教育程度和认知技能差异的很大比例。在大多数国家中，受教育程度较低的父母所生的孩子拥有超过该水平的机会少于五十分之五十。家庭背景与收入密切相关，但这种关系在很大程度上受教育程度和认知技能的影响。即使在调整了其他变量之后，女性和年纪较小​​的人处于较低四分位数的几率更高，而达到较高四分位数的几率更低。这些调整后的几率的大小令人担忧。结论家庭背景和性别对个人的生活前景蒙上了阴影。各国在减轻这些不利因素方面的成功差异很大。