The intergenerational effect of educational expansion: evidence from a natural experiment in Spain

This article aims to explore the relationship between parental education and children's educational outcomes, addressing endogeneity challenges inherent in traditional cross-sectional analyses.Specifically, we investigate whether the increases in educational levels within the parental generation, stemming from the 1970 Spanish Educational Reform, led to improved educational achievements in the subsequent generation and whether it has led to a reduction in overall educational inequality.Employing data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) and an Instrumental Variable design, results show that the exogenous increase in parental education positively influences the educational outcomes of the offspring.This study uniquely contributes to the social stratification literature by intertwining two established approaches: scrutinizing the impact of educational reforms on both educational expansion and overall equality of opportunity.A distinctive feature lies in our emphasis on the intergenerational effect of these reforms, anticipating that augmented parental education shapes child-rearing strategies, subsequently influencing educational outcomes.Crucially, we explore two plausible channels through which this influence manifests: an increase in parental credentials and the enhancement of academic abilities in the parental generation.This nuanced examination not only sheds light on the dynamics of educational transmission but also provides insights into the multifaceted ways in which parental education influences the educational landscape for subsequent generations.Moreover, despite these advancements, our findings reveal that overall societal equality remains largely unaffected, as both high and low SES families equally benefit from the reform.