TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Falk, Armin
AU  - Kosse, Fabian
AU  - Pinger, Pia
        TI  - Mentoring and Schooling Decisions: Causal Evidence
        PY  - 2020/Jun/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 13387
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp13387
        AB  - Inequality of opportunity strikes when two children with the same academic performance are sent to different quality schools because their parents differ in socio-economic status. Based on a novel dataset for Germany, we demonstrate that children are significantly less likely to enter the academic track if they come from low socio-economic status (SES) families, even after conditioning on prior measures of school performance. We then provide causal evidence that a low-intensity mentoring program can improve long-run education outcomes of low SES children and reduce inequality of opportunity. Low SES children, who were randomly assigned to a mentor for one year are 20 percent more likely to enter a high track program. The mentoring relationship affects both parents and children and has positive long-term implications for children's educational trajectories.
        KW  - inequality of opportunity
KW  - human capital investments
KW  - education
KW  - childhood intervention programs
KW  - mentoring
KW  - socio-economic status
        ER  -