A major goal of social democratic welfare states has been to reduce the impact of social origin on the life chances of individuals. If the universalistic and egalitarian policies of these states were successful, we would expect the effect of social origin on social disadvantage to decline across...

The article addresses the question of whether the impact of economic resources on educational attainment has changed over time. According to the rational action perspective, variations in parental economic resources should be an important source of inequality in educational attainment, because...