The persistent relationship between family background and educational attainment in the Netherlands

Abstract We analyse the evolving impact of family background on educational attainment using administrative data on 2,834,777 individuals from 1,550,294 families born in the Netherlands between 1966 and 1998. We find intergenerational regression coefficients between 0.15–0.18, translating into a 1.8–2.2 month increase in educational attainment associated with a one-year increase in the attainment of a parent. Correlations between siblings explain 33 percent of the variance in educational attainment, with parental education accounting for approximately 75 percent of this share, suggesting that around one-fourth of the variance is explained by factors that are independent from parental education. Strikingly, despite pervasive changes in the distribution of educational attainment over time, the share of the variance attributable to factors shared by siblings remains stable at around 0.34. The intergenerational estimates also remain stable over the analysed period. Despite the stark reduction in overall education inequality, we conclude that family background has remained equally important for educational attainment.