Growing Up as a European? Parental Socialization and the Educational Divide in Euroskepticism

Research consistently shows that individuals with higher levels of education express lower levels of Euroskepticism. This relationship has been explained by values and skills acquired in education and by higher labor-market competitiveness. While these explanations assume a causal impact of education, previous research uses cross-sectional data. This is problematic, as students self-select into education. The contribution of this article is twofold. First, it provides a better test of the causal effect of education on Euroskepticism by using data from the Swiss Household Panel (1999–2011) that allow analyzing how Euroskepticism changes as students move through education from the age of 13 years onwards. Second, it advances theory by highlighting the role of parental socialization in explaining Euroskepticism. We argue that children of higher educated parents select into higher education and take over the pro-European attitudes of their parents. We find a strong educational divide in Euroskepticism. However, longitudinal analyses show no change in Euroskepticism as individuals pass through education. Supporting the parental-socialization hypothesis, parental Euroskeptic attitudes and education explain changes in youngsters' Euroskepticism. The results suggest that, rather than a genuine education effect, differences between educational groups are mostly a result of self-selection due to family background.