The effect of parental background on the potential education and employment of migrants’ children in Switzerland

Abstract

This paper explores the relations between parental background, the education level reached and the socioprofessional position of children during their transition to adulthood. The paper links segmented assimilation and institutional theories with a life-course approach. It tests three types of mechanisms of the relationship between parental background and children's lifecourse, which are the critical-period model; the path-dependency; and the cumulative-effect model. The paper uses data from the LIVES-FORS cohort panel survey and develops techniques of Bayesian network modelling. The sample is composed of 788 young people educated in Switzerland before the age of 10 with Swiss or non-Swiss origins interviewed five times from 2013 to 2017. The paper provides striking results of path dependency-effect models. It shows no correlation between the geographical origin of the parents and their children's success at school. The professional position of the children of migrants seems only correlated to their educational capital and gender.

Keywords

• Children of migrants
• life-course
• path-dependency
• cumulative effect
• discrimination
• Bayesian network model