Lotta Lintunen

Abstract

This dissertation provides a comprehensive analysis of educational inequality and social stratification, examining how disparities in educational attainment are produced, reproduced, and transformed across spatial and temporal contexts and individual life courses. Utilizing population-level administrative register data from Finland, the dissertation comprises three empirical studies addressing sibling similarity in education at the regional level, the dynamics of performance and choice effects in upper secondary schooling, and the accumulation of educational inequality across early and mid-adulthood. The first study reveals substantial within-country variation in sibling correlations in educational attainment (0.21–0.39), highlighting that regional disparities in inequality are significantly greater than previously documented in the Nordic context and correlated with the homo- or heterogeneity of the regional socioeconomic structure. Most of the regional variation (81%) in sibling correlations is explained by observed parental education and occupational status, while residual differences show minimal association with regional contextual variables. The second study explores the evolution of educational stratification in upper secondary school choice over the 1990s and 2000s, identifying gender-specific trajectories: increasing class-based differences among females driven by performance (primary effects) and declining inequalities among males primarily due to reductions in secondary effects. The third study adopts a lifecourse perspective, demonstrating that the offspring of highly educated parents spend, on average, 4.4 years longer as university graduates compared to peers from low-educated backgrounds, with both the timing and duration of educational attainment shaping these stratified outcomes. Collectively, the findings advance understanding of the mechanisms and processes underpinning educational inequality, revealing how both individual background and institutional structures intersect and evolve geographically, over time and life courses—even in a comprehensive and formally egalitarian education system. Methodologically, the dissertation bridges classical and contemporary theories of social mobility with rigorous life-course approaches and introduces the novel measurement of Expected Years as a University Graduate to capture long-run educational inequality.

In collaboration with Lauren Bishop, Pekka Martikainen, Joonas Pitkänen, and Lasse Tarkiainen.

Abstract

Systematic health disparities between population groups remain a critical concern in welfare states, with young people’s mental health diagnoses signalling deep social inequalities. This study investigates the pathways by which family background influences such health outcomes in early adulthood, focusing on the mediating roles of educational trajectory, and school performance. Utilizing total population Finnish register data for birth cohorts 1976–1995, we link educational and health records including prescription medication reimbursements with family and sibling information. Using sibling-based models, we test how variation in school performance and educational choices mediate the total effect of family background on mental health risk in emerging adulthood. We find that the link between family background and mental health risk was higher for the 1980s cohorts and better school performance and choosing academic upper secondary net of family background buffer the risk of antidepressant use, and the patterns are gendered.