We use administrative data from Norway to examine recent trends in the association between parents’ prime age earnings rank and offspring's educational performance rank by age 15/16. We show that the intergenerational correlation between these two ranks has increased over the past decades, and that offspring from economically disadvantaged families have fallen behind. This has happened despite public policies contributing to leveling the playing field. We show that the expansion of universal childcare and, more recently, the increased teacher-pupil ratio in compulsory school, have disproportionally benefited lower class offspring. The rising influence of parents’ earnings rank can partly be explained by a strengthened intragenerational association between earnings rank and education among parents, as educational achievement has an inheritable component. Yet a considerable unexplained rise in the influence of family background remains, consistent with evidence pointing toward increased parental involvement in children's lives, plausibly in response to higher returns to education.

我们使用挪威的行政数据来研究父母黄金年龄收入排名与子女 15/16 岁时教育表现排名之间关系的最新趋势。我们发现，过去几十年来，这两个排名之间的代际相关性有所增加，而来自经济困难家庭的后代则落后了。尽管公共政策有助于创造公平的竞争环境，但这种情况还是发生了。我们表明，普及儿童保育的扩大以及最近义务教育学校师生比例的提高，使下层阶级的后代受益匪浅。父母收入排名影响力上升的部分原因是父母收入排名与教育之间的代内关联性增强，因为教育成就具有可遗传的成分。然而，家庭背景的影响仍然存在大量无法解释的上升，这与父母更多地参与儿童生活的证据相一致，这似乎是对更高教育回报的反应。