Changing choices? Primary and secondary effects through times of educational contraction

Abstract How does inequality of educational opportunity evolve in the context of educational contraction? In Finland, educational attainment declined for cohorts born after the late 1970s, and this study analyses trends in class background inequality in the transition to upper secondary education using register data for total birth cohorts born between 1975 and 1997. Results from a Karlson-Holm-Breen (KHB) decomposition into primary (driven by educational performance) and secondary (choices net of educational performance) effects on educational inequality show different trends for females and males. Class background differences in upper secondary school choice increased steadily among females as a result of an increase in primary effects. For males, educational inequalities between the service and working classes as well as farmers decreased due to decreasing secondary effects. These results challenge traditional assumptions that changes in educational inequality operate predominantly through secondary effects and highlight the importance of examining mechanisms of educational inequality in the intersections of class background and gender.