Percorso formativo, differenziali salariali e background familiare: l’evidenza italiana

Education is considered the main tool for easing social mobility. However in Italy a strong correlation between educational attainments of parents and children emerge. This correlation could also depend on mechanisms related to rewards to education, if wage and human capital returns were related to family background. In this paper, by means of ISFOL-PLUS data, we study the link between father education and children educational path and analyze whether, holding education constant, earnings and educational returns differ according to family background. Findings show the influence of background along the whole educational path. Furthermore, holding education constant, those coming from a better background are better paid. However, being this advantage spread in all education levels, human capital returns do not differ according to father’s education.