The persistence of class origin inequalities among school leavers in the Republic of Ireland 1984-1993.

This paper examines changes in the relationship between class origins and the position young people occupy one year after finishing post-primary education in the Republic of Ireland over the period 1984-1993. We find that class differentials in the position occupied after leaving school do not change over time, although, among young women, the relationship between educational attainment and the position occupied does change slightly. We show that the reason why this latter change can co-occur with an absence of change in class differences is because class origin effects on the position a school leaver occupies one year after leaving school are substantially independent of educational attainment effects. In other words, class differences in how young people fare after leaving school are only weakly mediated by education. Other channels of class influence must therefore be operating, and their cumulative impact is much greater than that of class based educational inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]