Mentoring and Schooling Decisions: Causal Evidence

Arbeitspapier

Inequality of opportunity strikes when two children with the same academic performance are sent to different quality schools because their parents differ in socio-economic status. Based on a novel dataset for Germany, we demonstrate that children are significantly less likely to enter the academic track if they come from low socio-economic status (SES) families, even after conditioning on prior measures of school performance. We then provide causal evidence that a low-intensity mentoring program can improve long-run education outcomes of low SES children and reduce inequality of opportunity. Low SES children, who were randomly assigned to a mentor for one year are 20 percent more likely to enter a high track program. The mentoring relationship affects both parents and children and has positive long-term implications for children's educational trajectories.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 13387

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Design of Experiments: General ; Education and Inequality ; Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity ; Job, Occupational, and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion
• Subject: mentoring ; childhood intervention programs ; education ; human capital investments ; inequality of opportunity ; socio-economic status

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Falk, Armin ; Kosse, Fabian ; Pinger, Pia
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2020

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/223829
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:46 AM CET