Henning Lohmann
The paper provides evidence on the determinants and the development of private school attendance in Germany since the late 1980s. Germany is often cited as one of the prime examples of educational differentiation, since streaming into different types of schools starts early and the educational outcomes produced by these schools differ widely. Most empirical evidence on private school choice originates from countries with less differentiated school systems such as the US and the UK. It is an open question if this evidence can be transferred directly to countries with differentiated systems that offer the dual choice of "school type" and "public vs. private school." The main question posed in this paper is why the share of students in private schools has increased by about 25 percent in Germany in recent years. I hypothesize that the, albeit modest, decrease in the degree of differentiation in the German educational system makes private schools a more attractive choice for families who seek to maintain a higher status across generations through their privileged access to education. The gradually declining social differentials in access to university entry qualifications in Germany trigger increasing inequalities in other, qualitative dimensions such as the choice of private rather than public schools. The empirical analyses are based on data from the German Socio- Economic Panel Study (SOEP) covering the years 1987 to 2009. The results provide support for the hypothesis of increasing qualitative differences, since not only the share of students in private schools has increased but also the importance of social origins as a determinant of private school attendance.
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