TY  - THES
A3  - Schneider, Kerstin
A3  - Bredemeier, Christian
AB  - Education can promote social mobility, yet the opportunities to invest in education are unequally distributed. This dissertation examines how constraints on educational decision-making shape educational opportunities and inequalities across two contrasting settings: Bremen, Germany, and Beirut, Lebanon. It brings together three empirical studies on school assignment, access to information, and household responses to a severe shock.The first study uses random tie-breaking in Bremen’s secondary school assignment system to examine the consequences of losing an admission lottery. Lottery losses lead to longer journeys to school, disrupted peer networks, and changes in school composition. The study finds no consistent overall academic disadvantage, but shows that exposure to lottery losses and the ability to respond by attending a private school differ across student groups.The second study evaluates the introduction of school assignment information in six additional languages. Using a difference-in-differences design, it finds that students whose home language was covered by the translations became more likely to rank and attend an academic secondary school. This suggests that language barriers can affect consequential choices even within a formally fair and standardised assignment system.The third study examines the effects of the 2020 Beirut Port Explosion on Syrian refugee households. Difference-in-differences estimates indicate worsening material conditions and greater reliance on coping strategies, alongside lower school attendance, increased child labour, and greater exposure to violence among children. Early marriage also increases among young teenage girls. These findings show how a shock can place the burden of household adjustment on children when resources and institutional protection are limited.Together, the studies demonstrate that educational equity depends not only on formal access to education, but also on families’ access to information, viable choices, and support when shocks threaten educational investment.
AU  - Zuchanek, Kevin Jan
CY  - Wuppertal
DA  - 2026
DO  - 10.25926/BUW/0-1080
DP  - Bergische Universität Wuppertal
KW  - school choice
KW  - two-sided matching
KW  - immediate acceptance
KW  - information intervention
KW  - admission lotteries
KW  - compliance
KW  - external shock
KW  - coping mechanisms
KW  - extreme poverty
KW  - child labor
KW  - schooling
KW  - educational decisions
KW  - inequalities
LA  - eng
N1  - Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Dissertation, 2026
PB  - Bergische Universität Wuppertal
SP  - 1 Online-Ressource (125 Seiten)
T2  - Fakultät für Wirtschaftswissenschaft/Schumpeter School of Business and Economics
TI  - Educational decisions and inequality: Studies in the economics of education
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hbz:468-2-7669
Y2  - 2026-10-22T15:15:31
ER  -