Does education matter? France and Germany in comparative perspective

The paper builds on a French-German comparison of how individuals' educatio n and their social class position are related to each other. Labour-force s urveys from the early 1970s and 1990s are used as the empirical basis. We a nalyse patterns of occupational stratification by education from three pers pectives: change over time in each country, cross-national similarities and differences, and gender-specific variation. Focusing on the historical per spective, out analyses reveal substantial changes in each nation's pattern of occupational stratification by education. From the cross-national perspe ctive, we observe France and Germany as countries where relatively strong e ducation effects prevail compared with other countries. Despite a slight tr end of convergence in some aspects over time, the exact patterns of occupat ional stratification by education, however, vary They ate highly structured by the institutional ar;arrangements of the respective educational and emp loyment settings. Due to gender-specific variation in the returns to educat ion in the early 1970s, especially in Germany, we find the same pattern of cross-national dissimilarities in the link between education and social-cla ss position for women as for men only in the early 1990s.