The divergence of school track choices after Covid-19

During the pandemic, many measures were taken to prevent the spread of Covid-19. Some of these measures, such as school closures, directly affected students. Children from different backgrounds are likely to have different abilities to cope with the challenges of the pandemic and associated countermeasures. We analyse whether pre-existing differences in transition rates from primary schools in low-income and high-income neighborhoods to secondary schools have widened. Our results show that the transition rate from primary schools to Gymnasium, the academic track, increased by 1.5 percentage points in primary schools in high-income neighborhoods compared to primary schools in low-income neighborhoods, suggesting that the pandemic increased educational differences in Germany. We provide suggestive evidence that children's technological equipment and parents' capabilities to help their children differ across neighborhood types.