Family background and schooling outcomes before and during the transition - Evidence from the Baltic countries

Parental education is found to have a strong positive effect on propensity to enroll in and complete secondary and tertiary education, both in Soviet times and during transition, but mother’s education effect have been weakening. A human capital gap between titular ethnicities and Russian speaking minorities has emerged in all three countries and remains significant after controlling for parental education. In Estonia and Latvia, ethnic gap in secondary enrollment reinforces inequality of human capital distribution between ethnicities. The unexplained ethnic gap in tertiary attainment has been declining in Lithuania (despite absence of Russian language higher education) but widening in Latvia.