Intergenerational transmission of disadvantages - statistics
Data extracted in November 2021
Planned article update: June 2024
Highlights
In 2019, the EU average at-risk-of poverty rate of people whose parents had a low level of education was 20.3% while it was 12.0% for those whose parents had a medium level and 8.6% with highly educated parents.
In 2019, 76.4% of the EU population considered that the financial situation of the household in which they lived as teenagers was very good, good or moderately good.
People's lives as adults can be significantly affected by their life in childhood. More specifically, the socio-economic and financial situation of today’s adults during their teenage years can lead to a low standard of living in adulthood.
This Statistics Explained article focuses on intergenerational transmission of advantages and disadvantages from parents to today’s adults and shows how this affects the current standard of living of the population. The results are based on EU statistics on income and living conditions (EU-SILC) - 2019 module ‘Intergenerational transmission of disadvantages, household composition and evolution of income’ and the 2011 module ‘Intergenerational transmission of disadvantages’ in which each current household member aged 25 to 59 was asked questions about their family circumstances when they were aged 14.
Full article
Key statistical findings
- Persons having a low or a medium educational level are most likely to have low and medium educated parents but persons having a high educational level are most likely to have medium or high educated parents.
- People having a low level of education are around three and a half times more likely to be at-risk-of-poverty than people with a high level of education.
- The at-risk-of poverty rate was more than two times higher among people whose parents had a low level of education than among people whose parents had a high level of education.
Educational attainment level: transition from parents to current adults
The educational level of parents has a significant impact on the educational level of their children. This can be explained by the fact that parents with a high level of educational attainment have more financial resources to invest in the education of their children, in comparison with parents with a low educational attainment level. Moreover, highly educated persons may have clearer views of the benefits of education and can encourage and support their descendants to receive a high level of education.
The distribution of the EU population by educational attainment level[1] of parents is shown in Figure 1. The educational level of the parents is measured as the highest educational attainment level of both parents (or educational level of a single parent).
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The percentage of persons having parents with a low level of education decreased by 8.9 percentage points (pp.) from 54.4 % in 2011 to reach 45.5 % in 2019. Between 2011 and 2019, the share of the population having parents with a medium or high level of education increased by 3.7 pp. and 5.2 pp. respectively.
Majority of low-educated adults had low-educated parents
In 2019, 83.1 % of today’s adults (aged 25-59) in the EU who had a low level of education indicated that their parents also had a low level of education, 13.0 % had parents with a medium level of education and 3.9 % had parents with a high level of education (Figure 2). Significant variations across countries are observed. In Portugal, the percentage of the population having a low educational level whose parents also had a low-education is 97.1 %; in contrast this share is 30.5 % in Estonia.
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Source: Eurostat (ilc_igtp01)
Almost half of the adults with a medium level of education had low-educated parents
In 2019, the distribution of adults with a medium level of education by parents’ education level in the EU, showed that 46.0 % (ranging from 82.7 % in Portugal to 16.1 % in Germany) had parents with a low level of education, 40.7 % (ranging from 73.0 % in Romania to 10.9 % in Portugal) had parents with a medium level of education and 13.4 % (ranging from 38.6 % in Estonia to 1.5 % in Romania) had parents with a high level of education (Figure 3).
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Source: Eurostat (ilc_igtp01)
A larger share of highly educated adults had highly educated parents
In 2019, almost two-fifths of highly educated adults (Figure 4) had parents with a high educational level (38.9 % in the EU). One-third (33.5 %) on average in the EU had parents with a medium level of education, and 27.6 % had parents with a low educational level.
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Source: Eurostat (ilc_igtp01)
It can be concluded that persons having a low or medium educational level are most likely to have low or medium educated parents but persons having a high educational level are most likely to have medium or high educated parents.
Low-educated parents expose their descendants to a higher risk of poverty
The education level has a significant impact on the poverty situation. In 2019, in the EU (population aged 18 or more), the share of people at-risk-of poverty was 29.4 % among persons with a low level of education. The at-risk-of poverty level among people having a medium level of education was 14.4 pp. lower (15.0 %) and 21.8 pp. lower for those with a high level of education (7.6 %). People having a low level of education are around three and a half times more often at-risk-of poverty than people with a high level of education.
Looking at the educational level of the parents also reveals a strong influence on the at-risk-of poverty levels of today’s adults. In 2019, on average in the EU, the at-risk-of poverty rate of people whose parents had a low level of education was 20.3 %; it was 12.0 % when the parents had a medium level of education and 8.6 % among people with highly educated parents. In 2011, the situation was similar - 19.8 % at-risk-of poverty rate among people whose parents had a low level of education, 11.2 % for people with medium educated parents and 9.4 % for people with high educated parents. In both years, the at-risk-of poverty rate was more than twice as high amongst those having parents with a low level of education than amongst those having parents with a high level of education.
Differences between European countries are shown in Table 1. Overall, in 2019 the share of people at-risk-of poverty among people having parents with a low level of education was more than 20 % for 10 EU Member states (Estonia, Greece, Luxembourg, Spain, Italy, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Bulgaria and Romania) with the highest rate in Romania (37.4 %). The lowest rate was observed in Czechia (9.3 %). The at-risk-of poverty rate among people having highly educated parents was highest in Sweden (12.7 %) and Austria (14.8 %) and lowest in Romania (3.2 %) and Czechia (2.3 %).
The financial situation of the households was good rather than bad
Another factor influencing young people’s future life is the financial situation of the household. Table 2 shows the household financial situation of today’s adults when they were around 14 years old. In 2019, 76.4 % of the EU population considered that the financial situation of the household in which they lived as teenagers was very good, good or moderately good, while 23.6 % felt that it was very bad, bad, or moderately bad. The percentage of the population assessing the financial situation of their household at the age of 14 as very bad, bad, or moderately bad was slightly higher than the percentage for those with a positive assessment only in Estonia as well as in the candidate country Albania.
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Financial situation of the parents’ household as a cause of poverty of today's adults
Analyzing the financial situation of today’s adults when they were teenagers shows a correspondence between past and current living conditions. For sake of simplicity, the answer categories very bad, bad and moderately bad are aggregated into one category entitled “Bad” financial situation and the categories very good, good and moderately good into one category entitled “Good” financial situation. In 2019, on average in the EU, the at-risk-of poverty rate was 23.0 % among people with a bad financial situation in their household in the past. This percentage is 9.6 pp. higher than the at-risk-of poverty rate among those with a good financial situation in their household when 14 years old. More than one in five persons having a bad financial situation in the past was below the at-risk-of poverty level in Belgium, Luxembourg, Portugal, Lithuania, Greece, Spain, Italy, Romania and Bulgaria. The percentage did not fall under 10 % in any EU country. The lowest percentages were observed in Czechia (10.2 %) and Denmark (10.3 %) and the highest in Romania (32.7 %) and Bulgaria (40.1 %). The at-risk-of poverty rate among persons having a good financial situation as teenagers ranged from 5.9 % in Czechia and 7.9 % in Slovakia to 16.0 % in Latvia and 16.6 % in Spain. Outside of the EU, this percentage ranged from 11.2 % in Norway to 19.2 % in Albania.
Source data for tables and graphs
Data sources
Data in this article are extracted from a special module on ‘Intergenerational transmission of disadvantages’ of the EU statistics on income and living conditions (EU-SILC) survey, which was carried out in 2019 and 2011. The data are available as Excel files downloadable from the Eurostat website.
Context
The objective of the 2019 module on ‘Intergenerational transmission of disadvantages, household composition and evolution of income’ is to analyse the evolution of the results on this topic and a repetition of the former (2005) ad-hoc module on the ‘intergenerational transmission of poverty’ as well as the 2011 module on ‘Intergenerational transmission of disadvantages’. The extent to which inequalities persist across generations is considered to play a major role in explaining adult social exclusion. In particular, the parental educational background and or their socio-economic status can influence the poverty risk during adulthood.
Direct access to
Database
- EU-SILC ad-hoc modules
- 2019 and 2011 Intergenerational transmission of disadvantages
Dedicated section
Publications
Methodology
- Income and living conditions (ESMS metadata file — ilc_esms)
- Income and living conditions — information on data
- Income and living conditions — methodology
Legislation
- Detailed list of legislative information on EU-SILC
- Regulation (EC) No 1177/2003 of 16 June 2003 concerning Community statistics on income and living conditions (EU-SILC)
- Regulation (EU) No 2018/174 of 2 February 2018 implementing Regulation (EC) No 1177/2003 concerning Community statistics on income and living conditions (EU-SILC) as regards the list of target secondary variables on intergenerational transmission of disadvantages, household composition and evolution of income for 2019.
- Regulation (EU) No 2010/481 of 1 June 2010 implementing Regulation (EC) No 1177/2003 concerning Community statistics on income and living conditions (EU-SILC) as regards the 2011 list of target secondary variables on intergenerational transmission of disadvantages.
Notes
- ↑ It should be noted that in 2011, the data regarding education attainment level is collected and recorded according to ISCED 97 - high (first stage of tertiary education and second stage of tertiary education), medium (upper secondary education and post-secondary non-tertiary education), low (pre-primary, primary or lower secondary education) and very low (could not read nor write in any language) and in 2019, according to ISCED 11 – high (short-cycle tertiary education, bachelor’s or equivalent level, master’s or equivalent level, doctoral or equivalent level), medium (upper secondary education and post-secondary non-tertiary education) and low (less than primary, primary education or lower secondary education).