Social origin always has a violent effect on access to diplomas and executive status

The parents’ background always has a strong influence on academic success and integration into professional life. This is what a study by Céreq, the center for studies and research on qualifications, shows.

In 2020, a study by Céreq, the center for studies and research on qualifications, observed the journey of 22,000 young people, three years after the end of their training.

franceinfo: Is the parents’ background always linked to the journey of these young people?

Sarah Lemoine: In France, the diploma remains very important for finding a job, especially at the start of your career. However, school still fails to reduce social inequalities linked to the environment of origin, according to the study.

First observation: 59% of young people, whose parents are workers, are oriented towards the professional sector at the end of third year, compared to 16% of children of executives. Only a quarter of workers’ children obtain the general baccalaureate, compared to more than three-quarters of executives’ children.

In higher education, it is also telling: 11% of workers’ children obtain a Master’s degree, bac + 5 level, compared to more than half of executives’ children. Finally, young people from modest origins experience failure more often: between a quarter and a third of them do not obtain any diploma.

What is the effect on the job market?

All diplomas combined, entry into professional life is more difficult for the children of workers who have less or less education. During the first three years, 17% of them are unemployed, compared to only 7% of children of executives. And at the end of these three years, the employment rate gap is 20 points between these two populations.

On the other hand, at equivalent levels of diplomas, there are no longer any real differences. This means that a child of workers who has obtained the baccalaureate, or a master’s degree, is not disadvantaged in access to employment, depending on their social origin. With one notable exception, though.

What exception?

Access to executive status. Three years after obtaining a master’s degree, for example, 78% of executives’ children become executives. Compared to only 60% of children of workers, with an equivalent diploma. The gap is even greater when the level of education stops at the baccalaureate.

As a result, the children of executives have access to better valued and better paid jobs. At the start of their career, they earn 2,400 euros net per month. It’s 300 euros more than for the children of workers. Always with equivalent diploma.

“This may be linked to the strength of the social network of executive parents, or a form of interpersonal skills which allows the children of executives to feel more legitimate”, says Elsa Personnaz, one of the authors of the study. Hypotheses, she says, which remain to be investigated.