Competing for Urban Jobs:The Changing Significance of Education, Family Resources, and Rural Bias in a Developing Setting.

Sociological analyses of educational and occupational attainment in developing settings have typically adopted either a consensus perspective (therefore emphasizing differences in human capital) or conflict perspective (emphasizing the importance of bias and discrimination). We propose a conceptual integration that recognizes the simultaneous operation of both processes and that generates a wider set of theoretical expectations, including possibilities of "structural convergence," "queuing," or "selective marginalization." We further recognize the historical and contextual contingency of these processes. We test this expanded model with event-history data that contain information on both schooling and employment histories for multiple cohorts of children from Cameroon (Africa). The data make it possible to examine rural-urban differences in patterns of educational and socioeconomic status attainment over 40 year period during which this country experienced important socioeconomic transformations. The event-history and longitudinal nature of these data, along with statistical adjustments for family fixed effects and selection biases makes it possible to generate detailed and reliable estimates for how the influences of human capital, family resources, and marginalization may change in the course of socioeconomic development. Findings show the limitations of adopting either consensus or conflict alone. The evidence shows the importance of processes of selective marginalization and the importance of resources beyond the educational attainment of children themselves. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]