Jonsson - Research - Nuffield College Oxford University

Research interests

My main research area is social stratification - including studies of educational inequality, social and income mobility, and ethnic stratification and integration. My interest in intergenerational processes also incorporates the study of children's well-being. A fuller set of references (as well as some other information on my appointments, grants, etc.) can be found in my attached Curriculum Vitae. Below, central publications are listed under different headings, while the first section just lists some of the most recent. Summary of results can be found under each substantive heading.

Recent publications and working papers

F. Kalter, J.O. Jonsson, F. van Tubergen, and A.F. Heath (eds.). 2018. Growing Up in Diverse Societies: The Integration of the Children of Immigrants in England, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden. Oxford: Oxford University Press for the British Academy. ISBN 978-0-19-7266-37-3.

S. Geven, J.O. Jonsson, and F. van Tubergen. 2017. 'Gender differences in resistance to schooling: The role of dynamic peer-influence and selection processes.' Journal of Youth and Adolescence 46 (Dec): 2421-2445. (DOI 10.1007/s10964-017-0696-2)

P. Gregg, J.O. Jonsson, L. Macmillan, and C. Mood. 2017. 'The role of education for intergenerational income mobility in the US, Great Britain, and Sweden.' Social Forces 96 (1): 121-152. (DOI 10.1093/sf/sox051)

S. Plenty and J.O. Jonsson. 2017. 'Social Exclusion among Peers: The Role of Immigrant Status and Classroom Immigrant Density', Journal of Youth and Adolescence 46 (6): 1275-1288. (DOI: 10.1007/s10964-016-0564-5)

C. Mood, J.O. Jonsson, and S.B. Låftman. 2017. 'Immigrant youth’s mental health advantage: The role of family structure and relations.' Journal of Marriage and Family 79 (April): 419-436. (DOI:10.1111/jomf.12340)

C. Mood, J.O. Jonsson, and S.B. Låftman. 2016. 'Immigrant integration and youth mental health in four European countries.' European Sociological Review 32(6): 716-729. (DOI 10.1093/esr/jcw027)

C. Mood and J.O. Jonsson. 2016. 'Trends in child poverty in Sweden: Parental and child reports', Child Indicators Research 9(3): 825-854. (DOI 10.1007/s12187-015-9337-z)

C. Mood and J.O. Jonsson. 2016. 'The Social Consequences of Poverty: An Empirical Test on Longitudinal Data.' Social Indicators Research 127: 633-52. (DOI 10.1007/s11205-015-0983-9)

J.O. Jonsson, C. Mood, and E. Bihagen. 2016. 'Poverty trends during two recessions and two recoveries: Lessons from Sweden 1991—2013', IZA Journal of European Labor Studies 5:3. (DOI 10.1186/s40174-016-0051-8)

R. Breen, C. Mood, and J.O. Jonsson. 2016. 'How much scope for a mobility paradox? The relationship between social and income mobility in Sweden', Sociological Science 3: 39-60. (DOI 10.15195/v3.a3)

C. Mood and J.O. Jonsson. 2015. “The Social Consequences of Poverty: An Empirical Test on Longitudinal Data.” Social Indicators Research, DOI 10.1007/s11205-015-0983-9.

P. Engzell and J.O. Jonsson. 2015. "Estimating Social and Ethnic Inequality in School Surveys: Biases from Child Misreporting and Parent Nonresponse." European Sociological Review 31: 312-25.

M. Jackson and J.O. Jonsson. 2013. “Why does inequality of educational opportunity vary across countries? Primary and secondary effects in comparative context.” Ch. 11 in M. Jackson (ed.) Determined to Succeed? Performance versus Choice in Educational Attainment. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Jonsson, J.O., S.B. Låftman, F. Rudolphi, and P. Engzell Waldén. 2012. ”Integration, etnisk mångfald och attityder bland högstadieelever”, Bilaga 6 (pp. 263-391) to the Governmental Commission, SOU 2012:74, Främlingsfienden inom oss. Stockholm: Fritzes. The Appendix can be downloaded here, and a preliminary version in English here.

Mood, C., J.O. Jonsson, and E. Bihagen. 2012. "Socioeconomic Persistence Across Generations: Cognitive and Noncognitive Processes", Chapter 3, pp. 53-83, in J. Ermisch, M. Jäntti, and T. Smeeding (eds.), From Parents to Children. The Intergenerational Transmission of Advantage. New York: Russell Sage.

Jackson, M., Jonsson, J.O., and F. Rudolphi. 2012. “Ethnic Inequality and Choice-Driven Educational Systems: A Longitudinal Study of Performance and Choice in England and Sweden.” Sociology of Education 85: 158-178.

Research themes

General Social Stratification

The most general article on stratification is a review article, with Richard Breen, on inequality of opportunity:

Breen, R. and J.O. Jonsson. 2005. "Inequality of Opportunity in Comparative Perspective: Recent Research on Educational Attainment and Social Mobility", Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 31, pp. 223-43.

Ethnic integration and stratification

In a large-scale internationally comparative project (CILS4EU), where I am the PI for Sweden (Youth in Europe (YES!)), we study the integration of ethnic minority school children. The data consist of harmonised longitudinal surveys, starting with 14-15-year olds in 2010/11, of around 5,000 adolescents in England, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden. In the autumn of 2018, we published a volume on integration which is probably the most comprehensive study of integration in a comparative perspective to date, covering structural, social, and cultural integration in our four countries.

Our results are partly surprising. For example, whereas children of immigrants in many ways are quite similar to the majority population, in others they differ markedly. Social integration shows little sign of increasing across immigrant generations, although cross-ethnic friendship is nevertheless rather common. The biggest differences between groups refer to the cultural dimension, where children of immigrants are much more religious and – partly as a consequence – have more traditional values when it comes to gender equality and tolerance to sexual minorities and abortion, for example. These ‘value gaps’ change slowly, if at all, showing that integration is not an automatic or swift phenomenon, something we attribute to phenomena such as segregation, stratification, and socialisation. In combination with the pronounced socioeconomic and cultural distances between (many of the) sending and receiving countries, the fundamental effects of these phenomena may also explain why we find, on the whole, relatively minor differences in integration across destination countries.

An interesting result is that immigrant adaptation is not a problem among adolescents. Our analyses of psychological well-being, indicated by internalising problems (such as depression or psycho-somatic ailments) and externalising behaviour (rowdiness, delinquency, etc.) lend support to the ‘immigrant paradox’ showing that children of immigrant origin, on the whole, have slightly better well-being than the majority population. We can show that around half of this advantage is due to more dense family relations.

Further to the study of structural integration, I have contributed to the study of ethnic differences in educational attainment. In a study on Sweden, together with Frida Rudolphi, we find that some second-generation ethnic minority groups fall behind in terms of grades, but almost all of these groups have high aspirations measured in terms of transition rates to academic upper secondary schooling, controlling for previous performance (grades):

Jonsson, J.O. and F. Rudolphi. 2011. “Weak performance – strong determination. School achievement and educational choice among ethnic minority students in Sweden.” European Sociological Review 27:487-508.

In an article co-authored with Michelle Jackson and Frida Rudolphi, we find that both England and Sweden exhibit very similar ethnic minority advantages in terms of choice, while school achievements differ depending on the minority group. Using longitudinal data we find that the pattern is the same when studying the transition to the university, again in both countries, and we suggest that choice-driven educational systems, where selection on previous performance is relatively weak, benefit ethnic minority children as many of them have high aspirations.

Jackson, M., Jonsson, J.O., and F. Rudolphi. 2012. “Ethnic Inequality and Choice-Driven Educational Systems: A Longitudinal Study of Performance and Choice in England and Sweden.” Sociology of Education 85: 158-178.

In a more extensive comparative analysis of early school-leaving Elina Kilpi-Jakonen, Frida Rudolphi and myself find that children of immigrants have high aspirations in many countries, but also that this group is polarized, with drop-out being a serious problem in some immigrant groups:

J.O. Jonsson, E. Kilpi-Jakonen, and F. Rudolphi. 2014. “Ethnic Differences in Early School-leaving: An International Comparison.” Chapter 4 in A.F. Heath and Y. Brinbaum (Eds.) Unequal attainments: Ethnic educational inequalities in ten Western countries. Oxford: Oxford University Press and the British Academy.

The similarities and differences in social and ethnic inequality in educational outcomes, based on performance and choice effects, are discussed in “Opening up the University: Measures for equalizing access to higher education”, pp. 31-36 in Heinrich Böll Stiftung's dossier Öffnung der Hochschule. Chancengerechtigkeit, Diversität, Integration.

Ethnic inequality is probably greater in the labour market than in school, and, when studying the occupational attainment of second-generation immigrants there is some support for a hypothesis of ‘visible minority’ discrimination:

J.O. Jonsson. 2007. “The farther they come, the harder they fall? First and second generation immigrants in the Swedish labour market.” Ch. 11, pp. 451-505 in Anthony Heath and Sin-Yi Cheung, Unequal Chances: Ethnic Minorities in Western Labour Markets, OUP 2007.

Ryszard Szulkin and I conducted a study on Ethnic Segregation in Swedish Comprehensive Schools (Sulcis WP 2007-2), making an effort to identify a causal effect of segregation. The results show some negative effect of ethnic concentration, especially for recently migrated youth.

Intergenerational mobility

My studies on intergenerational processes include several studies on social class mobility and its change over time and variation across countries (see my CV). More recently I have engaged in studying the processes that can account for the association between social origins and destinations.

In a comparison of the stratification regimes in England, the US, and Sweden, we (Paul Gregg, Carina Mood, Lindsey Macmillan and myself) ask how much of the intergenerational income association is mediated by educational credentials. Is the US the ‘meritocracy’ that many believe, where inequality in education is high, as is the return to credentials, but where educational fully account for the intergenerational income association? As expected, the income association is highest in the US, with elasticity at around 0.6), but it actually turns out that Sweden is most meritocratic and also more equal than either of the other countries. In the US and England, a very substantial portion of the intergenerational association is not mediated by either education or cognitive ability.

P. Gregg, J.O. Jonsson, L. Macmillan, and C. Mood. 2017. “The role of education for intergenerational income mobility in the US, Great Britain, and Sweden.” Social Forces 96(1): 121-152. (DOI 10.1093/sf/sox051)

Carina Mood, Erik Bihagen, and I use population data from Swedish administrative registers to analyse the role of cognitive ability, personality traits, and physical characteristics for the correlation between father’s and sons’ income and educational attainment, respectively. We find that the intergenerational educational correlation (r=0.38) is mostly mediated by cognitive ability, while personality traits and physical characteristics are of little importance. The income correlation (r=0.31) is mediated by cognitive ability too, but also by personality traits – and our analyses suggest that characteristics such as social maturity, emotional stability, and leadership capacity gain their importance directly in the labour market rather than through schooling. An interesting finding is that father’s income has a persistent and non-negligible effect on sons’ income despite very extensive controls for other parental characteristics (such as education, social class and occupation) and for other important mediators.

Mood, C., J.O. Jonsson, and E. Bihagen. 2012. "Socioeconomic Persistence Across Generations: Cognitive and Noncognitive Processes", Chapter 3, pp. 53-83, in J. Ermisch, M. Jäntti, and T.M. Smeeding (eds.), From Parents to Children. The Intergenerational Transmission of Advantage. New York: Russell Sage.

My research on mechanisms behind class mobility includes a project on micro-class (or occupational) mobility, together with David Grusky, Stanford, Reinhard Pollak, WZB, and Matthew di Carlo, Albert Shanker Institute (www.classmobility.org). The argument here, for which we find strong support in all four countries we study (Sweden, the US, Germany and Japan), is that class mobility is to a large extent driven by occupational inheritance. Two central publications are:

Jonsson, J.O., D.B. Grusky, M. Di Carlo, R. Pollak, and M.C. Brinton. 2009. "Micro-Class Mobility. Social Reproduction in Four Countries", American Journal of Sociology, 114: 977-1036.

Jonsson, J.O., D.B. Grusky, R. Pollak, M. Di Carlo, and C. Mood. 2011. "Occupations and Social Mobility: Gradational, Big-class, and Micro-Class Reproduction in Comparative Perspective”, Chapter 5, pp. 138-171, in T.M. Smeeding, R. Erikson, and M. Jäntti (eds.), Persistence, Privilege, and Parenting. The Comparative Study of Intergenerational Mobility. New York: Russell Sage.

Educational inequality

Between 1993 and 1996 Robert Erikson and I published three volumes on educational inequality stemming from a Swedish Governmental Commission. One of the key results was that the social inequality in educational attainment decreased markedly in Sweden during the first part of the 20th century, but that this trend levelled off for those born in the 1950s, approximately.

The 1996 volume – Can Education be Equalized? – was published by Westview but sold out quickly and has since then been very difficult to find. This is the full reference of the introduction from this book, which summarizes much of our findings and put them into an international and theoretical perspective:

Erikson, Robert and Jan O. Jonsson. 1996. "Introduction: Explaining Class Inequality in Education: The Swedish Test Case”, pp. 1-64 in R. Erikson and J.O. Jonsson (eds.): Can Education Be Equalized? The Swedish Case in Comparative Perspective. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press.

One of the theoretical ideas in this chapter was distinguishing between group differences in performance and in educational choice at given levels of performance (sometimes known as "primary" and "secondary" effects) – fundamental for sorting out the different mechanisms behind educational inequality. A volume studying this in a comparative perspective is Determined to succeed (Stanford University Press, 2013), edited by Michelle Jackson. In the comparative chapter, drawing on all contributions, Michelle Jackson and I conclude that the variation across countries (and over time) is substantial when it comes to the choice (secondary) effects, whereas the performance (primary) effects are strikingly similar. One policy conclusion is that there is still ample room of equalizing educational attainment by encouraging, and providing the resources for, children from disadvantaged social backgrounds to make the same choices as other children at the same level of performance (e.g., grades).

M. Jackson and J.O. Jonsson. 2013. “Why does inequality of educational opportunity vary across countries? Primary and secondary effects in comparative context.” Ch. 11 in M. Jackson (ed.) Determined to Succeed? Performance versus Choice in Educational Attainment. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

A lot of interest has been devoted to peer effects in education, and often the core idea is that high-achieving peers induce better achievements because of a positive contextual effects. Carina Mood and I show that this is only part of the story: High-achieving peers also have a negative effect on educational transition propensities, thus counter-balancing the achievement effect. We relate this to a generic contrast effect that is likely to obtain in many areas of social life.

Jonsson, J.O. and C. Mood, 2008. "Choice by Contrast in Swedish Schools: How Peers' Achievement Affects Educational Choice", Social Forces, Vol. 87, pp. 741-65.

Educational expansion is often seen as key for equalizing educational outcomes, but the empirical tests of this that Robert Erikson and I carried out for a comparative volume, show that expansion has had little effect on equalization (in relative terms) in Sweden.

Jonsson, J.O. and R. Erikson. 2007. "Sweden. Why Educational Expansion Is Not Such a Great Strategy for Equality: Theory and Evidence", pp. 113-139 in Y. Shavit, R. Arum, and A. Gamoran (eds.), Stratification in Higher Education: A Comparative Study. Stanford, Cal.: Stanford University Press.

However, even if educational expansion has not increased (relative) social mobility much by equalizing educational attainment, it has nonetheless been important for increasing social mobility. This is because the general increase in educational attainment pushes more and more people unto higher levels of education, where the association between social origin class and own (destination) class is comparatively low (at least in Sweden) – this is demonstrated in an article with Richard Breen. Social mobility also increased in Sweden because educational inequality was reduced (a reduction that probably stemmed from the equalization of living conditions and educational reforms - see the publications together with Robert Erikson).

Breen, R. and J.O. Jonsson. 2007. "Explaining Change in Social Fluidity: Educational Equalization and Educational Expansion in Twentieth Century Sweden", American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 112, pp. 1775-1810.

Studies of the level of living: Poverty in Sweden

As responsible for the Swedish Level-of-Living Survey (LNU), I have an interest in research in the level of living and the distribution of resources (in addition to opportunities as described above). Together with Carina Mood, I have published a number of studies of poverty, particularly child poverty.

We study changes in child poverty comprehensively: Both in the conventional way, by analysing the family economy (divided into material deprivation and absolute & relative income poverty), and directly by using surveys with children themselves as respondents. We find that child poverty in Sweden is both extremely low internationally, and probably at something like all-time-low (this is around 2010-13). Analyzed at family level, child poverty decreased markedly from the late 1960s, and also from around 2000. During the most recent years, there is not much change in material deprivation or poverty (defined in "absolute" terms), while since 2006 there has been a rapid increase in relative poverty, that is, in the distance between those with very low incomes and those with median incomes. This development has however not (yet) left any traces in children's own reported poverty as compared to their friends. The biggest worry is not the overall spread of poverty among the young, but the very high levels of child poverty among children of immigrants and lone parents.

J.O. Jonsson and Carina Mood. 2017. “Sweden: Child poverty during two recessions”, Chapter 11, pp. 242-274, in Cantillon Bea, Chzhen Yekaterina, Handa Sudanshu and Brian Nolan (Eds.) Children of Austerity: The Impact of the Great Recession on Child Poverty in Rich Countries. UNICEF and Oxford: Oxford University Press.

C. Mood and J.O. Jonsson. 2016. “Trends in child poverty in Sweden: Parental and child reports”, Child Indicators Research 9(3): 825-854. (DOI 10.1007/s12187-015-9337-z)

C. Mood, J.O. Jonsson. 2013. "Ekonomisk utsatthet och välfärd bland barn och deras familjer 1968-2010." Underlagsrapport till Barns och ungas hälsa, vård och omsorg 2013 (Socialstyrelsen). English version: Poverty and Welfare among Children and their Families. Research Report 2014/2. Institute for Futures Studies, Stockholm.

Based on the longitudinal data from the Swedish level-of-living surveys, we also conducted a study of a theoretically fundamental proposition in poverty research, which is curiously enough never questioned or analysed: That poverty is a shortage of economic resources with negative social consequences. We attempt to estimate causal effects of lacking economic means (defined in different ways) on different social outcomes. We do find support for the hypothesis for political participation and for socialising with friends and relatives but not for closer social relations in the form of social support. What appears to be important – or the best measure of poverty – is material deprivation whereas the least important is the most commonly used measure of poverty, relative income poverty.

C. Mood and J.O. Jonsson. 2016. “The Social Consequences of Poverty: An Empirical Test on Longitudinal Data.” Social Indicators Research 127: 633-52. (DOI 10.1007/s11205-015-0983-9)

Together with Erik Bihagen, Carina Mood and I have also studied inequality and poverty in the whole population. Our most recent publication addresses the changes across two recessions in Sweden, first the depression in 1991-1995, and then the much more muted recession 2008-2010. The first had a substantial impact on poverty rates, which took ten years of growth to counterbalance, while the more recent one had weak if any effects. While (‘absolute’) poverty levels have fallen from around 1996, due to rapidly increasing real wages, income inequality and relative income poverty have increased because income growth has been stronger for those with higher incomes.

J.O. Jonsson, C. Mood, and E. Bihagen: “Poverty trends during two recessions and two recoveries: Lessons from Sweden 1991—2013”, IZA Journal of European Labor Studies 5:3. (DOI 10.1186/s40174-016-0051-8)

In an earlier study, we also looked at the transmission of poverty across generations. Poverty during childhood increases the risk of poverty in adulthood, but the transmission of affluence is stronger than the transmission of poverty: children from high-income households have a very high likelihood of having high incomes as adults.

J.O. Jonsson, C. Mood, and E. Bihagen. 2010. "Fattigdomens förändring, utbredning och dynamik." Chapter 3 in Social Rapport 2010 (Socialstyrelsen). The whole report (in Swedish) can be downloaded here. An English translation (Poverty in Sweden 1991-2007. Change, dynamics, and intergenerational transmission of poverty during economic recession and growth) is available as SOFI Working Paper 10/2011.

Studies on young people's welfare (YOUNG)

My work on children's and adolescents’ welfare includes recent studies of ethnic integration, psychological well-being, and child poverty, described above. I am also the PI of a research project funded by Forte on children's living conditions (YOUNG), that started in 2013. In this project, we take a broader view on children’s living conditions and their changes over the recent decades. Some of the publications from this project, not mentioned above, where I have been co-authoring, are:

S. Geven, J.O. Jonsson, and F. van Tubergen. 2017. “Gender differences in resistance to schooling: The role of dynamic peer-influence and selection processes.” Journal of Youth and Adolescence 46 (Dec): 2421-2445. (DOI 10.1007/s10964-017-0696-2)

S. Plenty and J.O. Jonsson. 2017. “Social Exclusion among Peers: The Role of Immigrant Status and Classroom Immigrant Density”, Journal of Youth and Adolescence 46 (6): 1275-1288. (DOI: 10.1007/s10964-016-0564-5)

In 2010 I published an Editorial on child welfare and intergenerational processes in Child Indicators Research, for which I was the guest editor.

Jan O. Jonsson. 2010. "Child Well-Being and Intergenerational Inequality." Editorial, Child Indicators Research 3:1-10. (Editorial)

In LNU2000 we introduced a separate survey on children, 10-18 years of age, on the basis of which I published, together with co-authors, Barns och ungdomars välfärd (SOU 2001:55; see link below). This survey was later to be replicated in the ULF series, starting 2001, via a grant I had from FAS; and in 2010 we repeated the Child-LNU survey, as well as followed up the previous sample ten years after the first wave. A presentation in English of the Child-LNU study, with Viveca Östberg, is published in:

J.O. Jonsson and V. Östberg. 2010. "Studying Young People's Level of Living: The Swedish Child-LNU." Child Indicators Research 3:47-64. (Child-LNU)

A study based on Child-LNU 2000 and the first waves of Child-ULF, on young people's economic resources and consequences of hardship, written together with Viveca Östberg, is published as Chapter 5 in Ekonomiskt utsatta barn. (Ds 2004:41)

A critical view of sociology is given by Tom Lehrer. An introduction in Swedish to Tom Lehrer and his music can be found here.

Janne Jonsson - Research