The affect of personal, family and social factors on achived formal education and the level of competencies
Abstract
deals not only with the inequality of chances to get a higher education and development of educational mobility but also with the influence of social origin and attained education on the level of competence of an individual. The results of performed analyses confirm the general trend of the decrease of the share of upwardly mobile and the growth of the downwardly mobile individuals and prove that there are great differences between men and women in the basic mobility patterns (more women than men experienced the upward mobility).
What is quite surprising is the growth of the influence of the socio-economic status of the family regarding the attainment of high school education with a diploma and significant differences between men and women in their chances to attain higher education: women have twice as high a chance to attain high school education than men and three times higher chance to transfer from high school to a university education. Competences are formed both by attained education and social origin.
The influence of the socio-economical status of the family on the competences is influential rather indirectly, by means of attained education. Apart from that, a strong influence of the education of the mother on the attained education and competences of her son or daughter was proved.
What was also found was the trend of gradual increase of the level of competences up to around 30 years of age when a turn occurs and competences slowly “evaporate,” with minor differences based on gender and the type of competences.