Educational Opportunities of Children in Poverty

Abstract

In this paper, I use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) to investigate whether and how a German youth's choice of secondary school (Hauptschule, Realschule, Gymnasium) varies with the timing and duration of poverty experienced in childhood. To investigate what role the timing of poverty plays, I examine the correlation between educational choices and the poverty status of each child's household in the three years preceding the educational decision to be analysed. Not surprisingly, persistently poor youth are less likely to choose higher educational trajectories.