TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Mendolia, Silvia
AU  - Siminski, Peter
        TI  - Does Family Background Affect Earnings through Education? A Generalised Approach to Mediation Analysis
        PY  - 2016/Apr/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 9917
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp9917
        AB  - We seek to quantify the role of education as a mechanism through which family background affects earnings. To this end, we propose a generalisation of statistical 'mediation analysis'. In our approach, the treatment and mediator can be multidimensional. This allows us to directly and flexibly account for a range of background characteristics which affect child earnings through the pathway of education and through other mechanisms. The results suggest that educational attainment explains 24%-39% of the overall family background effect on earnings in Australia. The mediating role of education seems to be larger for Australia than for the UK.
        KW  - equality of opportunity
KW  - intergenerational mobility
KW  - mediation analysis
        ER  -