MPC Member Publications

This database contains a listing of population studies publications written by MPC Members. Anyone can add a publication by an MPC student, faculty, or staff member to this database; new citations will be reviewed and approved by MPC administrators.

Full Citation

Title: Continuing Education and Stratification at Midlife

Citation Type: Journal Article

Publication Year: 2021

ISSN: 0038-0407

DOI: 10.1177/00380407211041776

PMID: 34621082

Abstract: We ask whether patterns of racial ethnic and socioeconomic stratification in educational attainment are amplified or attenuated when we take a longer view of educational careers. We propose a model of staged advantage to understand how educational inequalities evolve over the life course. Distinct from cumulative advantage, staged advantage asserts that inequalities in education ebb and flow over the life course as the population at risk of making each educational transition changes along with the constraints they confront in seeking more education. Results based on data from the 2014 follow up of the sophomore cohort of High School and Beyond offer partial support for our hypotheses. The educational attainment process was far from over for our respondents as they aged through their 30s and 40s: More than 6 of 10 continued their formal training during this period, and 4 of 10 earned an additional credential. Patterns of educational stratification at midlife became more pronounced in some ways as women pulled further ahead of men in their educational attainments and parental education (but not income), and high school academic achievement continued to shape educational trajectories at the bachelor’s degree level and beyond. However, African Americans gained on whites during this life phase through continued formal (largely academic) training and slightly greater conditional probabilities of graduate or professional degree attainment; social background fails to predict earning an associate’s degree. These results, showing educational changes and transitions far into adulthood, have implications for our understanding of the complex role of education in stratification processes.

Url: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34621082/

User Submitted?: No

Authors: Grodsky, Eric; Doren, Catherine; Hung, Koit; Muller, Chandra; Robert Warren, John

Periodical (Full): Sociology of education

Issue: 4

Volume: 94

Pages: 341-360

Countries:

IPUMS NHGIS NAPP IHIS ATUS Terrapop