How Different Education Systems in Europe Impact Inequality

Written by Julia Kastner (BSc Politics and Economics)

Education as a tool to approach social inequality

During their education children are given the tools to professionally succeed in life. This is the cultural capital attained through learning as well as the symbolic capital attained through a degree. By increasing your capital, better education makes you more valuable to future employers, which in turn increases the potential for a higher income. Here, the pivotal role of education in the intergenerational persistence of inequality becomes evident. A system which allows you to receive a better education than your parents will decrease the intergenerational persistence of inequality. Hypothetically, in the absence of an education system, a young person’s value to future employers could never surpass that of their parents as all their capital could only be attained through their parents.

Across Europe, different education systems distribute capital differently. This is because students are separated to different degrees based on their financial resources, performance or special interests. Intuitively one would expect a system based on financial separation to increase the persistence of inequality most severely. However, this does not seem to be the case as the socioeconomic background of children decisively influences their performance and interests in the early stages of life. In this article we shall analyse and compare four different education systems, the German, Italian, Swedish and British, to assess how they impact the intergenerational persistence of inequality in society.

Structures of education systems

As mentioned above, education systems are characterised by the way in which they separate students according to different criteria.

One feature that one expects to have an impact on inequality is the degree of segregation. Segregation occurs when students are separated into wealthier and less wealthy students. This functions through the existence of privately funded schools alongside state-funded schools. The cost of private schools shall serve as a measure of the degree of segregation as with increasing cost, schools become more exclusive, and segregation is harsher.

Moreover, stratification and standardisation are the criteria usually drawn on by experts such as Pfeffer (2008) and Van de Werfhorst & Mijs (2010).

Stratification describes the degree to which students are separated according to their chosen specialisation. This is the case when the education system offers different pathways that may lead to the achievement of different qualifications. This usually occurs based on the preferences or skills of the students. Important dimensions of this criterium are the number of pathways available, the degree of isolation of each pathway and the age at which separation takes place. Depending on the pathway a student has taken, they will have different opportunities in the labour market.

Standardisation entails the degree of separation of students according to a central metric of ability. This is the case when examination and organisation are centralised. Whether exams are centrally marked, based on a central marking scheme or examine a centrally set syllabus influences the comparability of a degree within a country. How well different degrees express a student’s abilities will affect their ability to increase their value to the labour market independently from their socioeconomic background.

The Four Education Systems

To proceed with the analysis, the structures of the German, Italian, Swedish and British education systems shall be presented briefly.

In Germany, private schools are bound by different laws, depending on the state, to be affordable (I am Expat, n.d.). Thus, there is weak financial segregation. Students are separated at an early age into four different types of schools, the Gymnasium, the Gesamtschule, the Realschule and the Hauptschule (Make it in Germany, n.d.). Those types of schools differ in their study intensity and content and only students completing the Gymnasium receive access to universities. Hence, there is very strong stratification. Moreover, the central Abitur exam is graded by the schools according to a central marking scheme and broad curriculum (Eurydice, n.d.a). The level of standardisation is moderate.

In Italy, while private schools are generally more expensive than state schools, they tend to charge moderate fares from 4000 to 12000€ (InterNations, n.d.a). There is moderate segregation taking place. In the Italian education systems students are separated at a later age depending on whether they go on to the liceo, istituto tecnico/professionale or the istruzione e formazione professionale (Ministero dell’Istruzione e del Merito, n.d.). There is strong stratification. In Italy, the final exam is graded by the independent schools according to their curriculum (Ministero dell’Istruzione e del Merito, n.d.). Thus, the level of standardisation is low.

The Swedish education system, like the Italian, disposes of private schools that charge moderate tuition fees that range from 2600 to 9000€ (InterNations, n.d.b). Segregation is moderate. Students are separated at a very late age into those that attend the gymnasieskola, the yrkeshögskola or the folkhögskolor (Eurydice, n.d.b). There are moderate levels of stratification. In Sweden, there is no central examination (Eurydice, n.d.b). This leads to very weak standardisation.

In the British education system, one finds very expensive private schools that typically charge around 20000€ (The Good Schools Guide, n.d.). This means there is very strong financial segregation. However, there is no separation of students into different pathways as all can attend university (UNI Britannica, 2020). Hence, stratification is weak. Moreover, there are central exams based on a strict central curriculum (GOV.UK, n.d.). The levels of standardisation in the UK are high.

The Observed Effects of Structures on Social Mobility

Next, the impact of those structures shall be reviewed by drawing on literature from the field.

In his paper, Pfeffer finds that stratification decreases social mobility independently of other institutional characteristics (2008). His assessment is based on a similar evaluation of the education systems as the foregoing, where 15 more cases were considered. In his ranking of educational mobility, Germany performs worst, then Italy, Sweden and the UK comes out on top. The German education system has very strong stratification, while the Italian system has weaker stratification. Then in Sweden, we have even weaker stratification and ultimately in Britain stratification is very weak. The effect of stratification seems to prevail over that of standardisation as Germany has a stronger standardised education system than Italy and Sweden but performs worse on educational mobility. This seems sensible as an early permanent division of students will impede later central examinations to efficiently sort students according to their performance. Yet, it could be hypothesised that educational mobility might be even lower in Germany if standardisation was lower, but one cannot collect data to confirm such a claim.

Van de Werfhorst and Mijs however support this argument with the review of comparative literature on both intra- and cross-national variation (2010). They conclude that standardisation promotes equality of opportunity, sorts efficiently and prepares for employment. Similar to Pfeffer, they also find that stratification impedes equality of opportunity and efficient sorting. Thus, one could claim that while standardisation does have an effect on the intergenerational persistence of inequality, its effect is conditional on low levels of stratification as otherwise no equality of opportunity or efficient sorting is possible. With high levels of stratification high levels of standardisation are likely to only have weak ameliorating effects.

I shall put this discussion in the context of social inequality and the distribution of capital. The discussed literature shows that the earlier the process of stratification commences, the more do social and cultural capital, and therefore the socioeconomic background, of a student affect their success. It appears that cultural and social capital are more decisive than economic capital when it comes to educational mobility and thus intergenerational persistence of inequality.

The Effects of Segregation

Yet, it seems unlikely that a major separation of students according to their parents’ wealth during their formative phase in life, as it occurs in England, has no impact on society.

The examination of two different OECD panels reveals that segregation might have an effect on the perception of inequality (OECD, 2021). Indeed, the perception of intergenerational persistence of inequality matches well with the ranking composed by Pfeffer (2008) even though in Sweden there is less perceived intergenerational persistence of inequality. However, looking at the share of respondents who strongly agree with the statement that differences in income in their country are too large reveals a different picture. People in Italy are most concerned with income inequality, after the Italians come the English and only then come the Germans and Swedish.

I would argue that the financial segregation of students might impact the concern over inequality. Due to the weaker segregation after school, it could be possible that the early segregation raises more concerns as it is more evident that the separation is not in accordance with merit or ability. This is similar to the argument made by Son Hing et al. that with lower inequality, social milieus mix more, and thus more upward comparison takes place (2019). The perception and concern with inequality increases. Hing et al. also find that inequality can be justified by the belief that meritocratic principles are at play. This means that through their later experience after school when people recognise that segregation at school is not due to merit, this system of justification falls away. However, the authors also argue that beliefs in social mobility increase the justification of social inequality. Evidently, it is not possible to determine which factors dominate the concern about inequality.

Nevertheless, the early segregation of students according to the financial resources of their parents provides a possible explanation for why people in England are more concerned about inequality despite being aware of the lower intergenerational persistence of inequality. This concern might moreover imply stronger class identification as a consequence of segregation in school.

The Impact of Education Systems on Inequality

It must be noted that the distinct effect of education systems on inequality cannot be shown empirically without great difficulties. One cannot clearly isolate the effect of the education system from other factors such as national wealth, economic crises, social policy and economic systems. However, there are effects which one can observe and of which one can then infer the impact on inequality.

It has been discussed that stratification and standardisation have the largest impact on educational mobility. In turn, changes in the level of education are likely to have an impact on social mobility as a better education should increase one’s value to the labour market and thus improve one’s career prospects. When the likelihood of people earning more or less than their parents increases, inequality should decrease as people’s natural abilities only differ by a limited degree compared to the degree to which incomes can differ. Yet, more importantly, the existent inequality is expected to be fairer as one is given the opportunity to improve their own situation.

This article has also found that stronger segregation might lead to stronger concerns about inequality and stronger identification with social classes. Counterintuitively, this could mean that, so long as social mobility is not affected because access to higher education is independent of segregation, stronger segregation leads to lower inequality. This can be supported by the mechanisms explained by Meltzer and Richard that when a society has a stronger perception of inequality and is more concerned about it, more people vote for political candidates that support redistribution and thus redistribution should be more likely to take place (1981).

As with many policies, the success of a certain education system lies in the detail and how different factors interact with each other. High levels of stratification are likely to exacerbate the effects of strong segregation and weak standardisation. On the other hand, when stratification is weak, high levels of segregation might strengthen concerns about inequality and lead to more equality and fairness-providing policies. Furthermore, the impact of standardisation seems to strongly depend on low levels of stratification to allow for any scope in efficiently sorting students according to their abilities.

It does thus not come as a surprise that in most countries people are discontent with their education system. It is easy to argue that it fails to fulfil its role to maximise the students’ potential as the success is conditional on various separate factors perfectly interacting with each other.