Zabel: Imputed education histories and fertility analysis in the western German context
Slowey (2002), for example, compare institutional characteristics that facilitate or
inhibit access to post-secondary education for non-traditional students, including older
students, between a number of countries. They find that the institutional framework in
Germany is comparatively inconducive to educational participation by older students.
Post-secondary education in Germany is less institutionally diversified and provides
fewer programs that specifically meet the needs of older students than in many other
countries. In addition, there are few alternative modes of access for students who do not
fulfill the regular entrance requirements. There is also no formal recognition of part-
time student status.
Table 1 shows the distribution of post-secondary degree combinations for the
cohort studied in the empirical analyses in this paper. Here we can see that 56% of the
women in cohort 1964 had exactly one basic vocational degree, while 15% had two or
more of this type of degree. Altogether, at least 27% of the female members of this
cohort had more than one degree (given that a basic vocational degree is a necessary
precondition to qualify for a master craftswoman’s or technician’s degree). This is in
line with findings by Lauterbach and Weil (2008) who also report that a high proportion
of members of an adjacent cohort, born in 1966/67, take up a second post-secondary
education after their first. Thus, the extent to which respondents hold multiple degrees
does not seem to be negligible. This could imply some difficulties for imputing
education histories on the basis of information on the highest degree alone.
However, there seems to be some evidence that in Germany, second vocational
degrees are often obtained shortly after the first. Jacob (2005) reports that rates of
transition to second vocational training episodes are especially high immediately upon
completing a first vocational degree. Furthermore, among people who are already
working, rates of transition to second vocational training spells are highest at only short
employment durations. This kind of a pattern is very likely to indicate that gaps
between first and second training episodes are quite small, which would make
imputation less problematic (although special cases are conceivable where long average
gap lengths are compatible with these findings as well). As long as we know the last
date the respondent received a degree, generally short gaps would mean that we can
quite safely apply our method of imputation and consider respondents to be enrolled up
to that date. Only short durations of time between training spells would then be
misrepresented as a consequence of imputation.
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