Professional matura as inequality reducing measure?

Education is a major source of inequality of opportunity, whenever scholastic success depends upon children's family background. In Switzerland, a new degree aiming to increase the mobility from lower to higher tracks was introduced for the upper secondary education. We analyze the impact of this degree in terms of inequality of opportunity reducing tool. A two-stage model is used to correct for sample selection bias and to identify inequality reducing effects. Our results are very heterogeneous showing some benefcial effects in terms of inequality reduction for girls, but no reducing effects for boys.