Parental background,educational attainments and returns to schooling and to marriage: the case of Israel

This paper investigates the effect of family background attainments and on returns to own and wife's schooling, for Jewish males Israel. Three dimensions of paternal background are referred to: father's education, the prestige of the father's occupation, and whether the father is of a western origin (an advantage in the western-oriented Israeli society). For each of these types of segmentation it is found that both the level of and the returns to own and wife's schooling (after some years of marriage) are higher for those coming from a more favourable background.

These empirical findings are consistent with an investment in schooling model in which differences in demand (productivity of own and wife's schooling) vary more than differences in supply of investment funds.