Peers' parental education and occupation drive university enrollment
A new Bank of Italy working paper examines how high school peers' parental education and occupation influence university enrollment. Using longitudinal data, the authors find that highly educated and well-employed peer parents significantly raise higher education attendance.
The classroom social multiplier
The study utilizes a rich longitudinal dataset linking secondary school students in Italy with university administrative records from 2015 to 2023.
By exploiting within-school and cross-cohort variation, the authors isolate the peer-parent effect from students' own abilities and family backgrounds.
The results show that a one standard deviation increase in the share of peers with highly educated parents raises the probability of university enrollment by 1 percentage point, accounting for about 2 percent of the average enrollment rate.
The effect is particularly pronounced among students in non-academic high schools and those whose parents lack a tertiary degree.
Jobs matter as much as diplomas
The research highlights that parental education alone is insufficient; its positive impact depends critically on the parents' labor market outcomes.
When high educational attainment is paired with unfavorable employment, such as unemployment or overqualification, the positive peer effect vanishes entirely.
Furthermore, the influence exhibits non-linear dynamics, peaking at intermediate levels of exposure where diversity in peers' backgrounds maximizes social learning.
Classroom inequality under the microscope
The study provides rare empirical proof that classroom peers' parental backgrounds actively shape higher education access.
Yet, the findings remain geographically restricted to Italy's institutional framework.
Policymakers must account for these hidden peer networks when addressing structural educational divides.