The role of personality traits in the production of social inequality has increasingly been the subject of sociological inquiry. Conscientiousness, in particular, has proven to be an important predictor of educational achievement and occupational attainment. The importance of conscientiousness in predicting unequal outcomes in the life course leads to the question of whether differences in this trait have their origins in social stratification. Parenting practices have been shown to vary across socioeconomic strata and to influence children's outcomes in different ways. Yet there has been little research to date on the extent to which dimensions of parenting mediate or moderate the effects of SES on child outcomes. The main objective of this paper is to identify whether primary caregivers in Germany differ in their parenting practices by socioeconomic characteristics, and whether these affect the development of conscientiousness in early childhood.
The study analyzes data from the SOEP, in which children are observed at three measurement points: 0-23 months, 2-3 years, and 5-6 years (N=519).
The results suggest that in Germany, parenting practices, which, as expected, differ across SES, partially mediate the relaton between SES and childs conscientiousness. Results remain unchanged even after the effect of infant/toddler temperament on parenting practices is taken into account.