Intergenerational Transmission of Education among Immigrant Mothers and their Daughters in Sweden

This study uses extensive Swedish register data to analyze the intergenerational transmission of education between immigrant mothers and their daughters. The results show that the transmission is only slightly lower among daughters of immigrant mothers compared to native daughters. The educational relationship between mothers and daughters is further found to be nonlinear. For both groups, the intergenerational link is weaker among daughters of poorly educated mothers. Moreover, the average transmission differs across immigrant groups but these differences can be explained partly by dissimilar maternal educational backgrounds. In addition, the differences between women with an immigrant background and native women have decreased across the two generations. Finally, the educational attainment of an immigrant group has a positive but weak impact on daughters’ educational outcomes.