Educational upgrading, career advancement, and social inequality development from a life-course perspective in Germany

This article employs data from the adult cohort of the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) to investigate the extent to which upgrading of educational credentials over the life course influences the social stratification of labour market outcomes. We argue that credentials upgrading should be an important predictor of both inter- and intragenerational mobility, especially in Germany where occupational and educational attainment are tightly linked. Indeed, we show that career progression in Germany is dependent upon re-enrolment into formal education and that changes in occupational status are hierarchically distributed across types and levels of educational upgrades. While much more persons of disadvantaged social background are at risk of upgrading, persons of advantaged backgrounds are both slightly more likely to upgrade and to upgrade to qualifications leading to the highest expected premiums. Despite these differences, educational upgrading does not alter the overall level of social stratification in occupational status attainment.