Birth cohorts between hysteresis and resilience effects: Social value of education and stratification in France and the US 1970-2005

Résumé 0

Most research pieces on age-period-cohort (APC) models assess the intensityof cohort effects under the hypothesis of their stability over life course.A new step in APC research is proposed here with a test on cohort effectstability over life course. Such an hypothesis must be tested since examplesexist in which perfect hysteresis of cohort effects is not a realisticassumption. The very recent ASR paper of Yang Yang and colleagues' (2008) onAPC models can be improved to provide such a diagnosis.The example of the relation between diploma and social position (coded asSEI or as EGP) over the latest decades demonstrates that strong cohortfluctuations exist in the "returns to education" (in terms of occupationalposition) of cohorts of young adults, but these fluctuations can (or cannot) be absorbed with their stabilization in adulthood. Here, "effect ofresilience" is defined as an effect of absorption of shocks experienced inearly adulthood. The intensity of "cohort effects" and of "resilienceeffects" in early adulthood status attainment shocks are importantcharacteristics of welfare regimes: compared to the United States consideredas a liberal regime where labor flexibility is stronger, the Frenchconservative welfare regime induces stronger cohort effects (early adulthoodfluctuations are more intense) and less resilience (the shocks are moredurable since their absorption is weaker). France is a country with strongand durable cohort fluctuations, implying gaps between "social generations"(= socially polarizaed and constructed births cohorts), when the US are morelinear in this respect. Thus, a systematic analysis of stability/resiliencein cohort effects appears as an important issue in the APC research agenda,since strong cohort effects without resilience should receive more attentionfrom sociologists.