Why Educational Attainment is Lower among Children of Immigrants in Denmark: A Dynamic Analysis of Educational Progression

Bjorg Colding, Institute of Local Government Studies - Denmark

Recent studies show that the educational attainment of children of immigrants in Denmark is much lower than the educational attainment of native Danish children. The purpose of this paper is to determine at what stages of their educational careers ethnic minority youth fall behind their native Danish peers and the magnitude of intergenerational transmission. A dynamic discrete model of educational progression from grade school to either completion of a qualifying upper secondary education or enrollment at the tertiary level is formulated and estimated, controlling for individual, family background, and neighborhood characteristics as well as unobserved heterogeneity. The analyzes show that high dropout rates particularly from vocational upper secondary educations are an important reason for the observed differences in educational attainment. Interestingly, family background and neighborhood characteristics do not significantly affect dropout rates from vocational upper secondary educations for any of the ethnic minority groups.