The Relative Effect of Family and Financial Characteristics on Educational Achievement

(2001) - Arnaud Chevalier, Gauthier Lanot

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Tags:: #paper #Attainment #NCDS
Cite Key:: [@Chevalier2001]

Abstract

Britain is characterised by a low rate of post compulsory schooling compared to other European countries. To reduce this disparity, the British government has been testing an Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) where 16 to 19-year olds are given financial support to attend schooling when the family income falls below a threshold. This paper attempts at first separating family and income effects and second estimating the impact of a financial transfer on educational attainment.

Notes

“Schooling attainment and other choices made during adolescence reflect the conditions in which children are growing up (see Haveman and Wolfe, 1995 for the US and Gregg et al., 1999, for the UK, for recent reviews).” (Chevalier and Lanot, 2001, p. 6)

“educational decisions do not stem from short-term financial constraints but have their origins in the long-term effects of family characteristics on ability, motivation and other unobserved characteristics1” (Chevalier and Lanot, 2001, p. 7)

“To summarise our findings, as in previous studies, we find that pupils from poorer families are less likely to invest in education.” (Chevalier and Lanot, 2001, p. 8)

“The family background characteristics are collected when the child was 11. They include parental education, father’s socio-economic group9, number of siblings, and dummies for the presence of natural parents and race.” (Chevalier and Lanot, 2001, p. 11)

“A dummy for whether the child was brought up in a council estate captures some neighbourhood effects. Father’s earnings (in grouped category) were reported in 1974 when the child was 16; this measure is used as a proxy for family income. Information on a single year is only a crude proxy for the financial situation of the household as the child was growing up (see Wolfe et al., 1996, for example). However, this is the constraint that the adolescent is facing while making his choice of investing in more education.” (Chevalier and Lanot, 2001, p. 11)

“Additionally, many interviews in 1974 were conducted during the “three-day week”10. It is unclear whether adjusted earnings were reported (Mickewright, 1986) thus the earnings variable is likely to be noisy.” (Chevalier and Lanot, 2001, p. 11)

“The family background variables are similar to those defined for the NCDS but they were collected when the child was 10.” (Chevalier and Lanot, 2001, p. 12)

“As Scotland has a different educational system than England and Wales, children living in Scotland are dropped from this analysis.” (Chevalier and Lanot, 2001, p. 12)

“Governments look at incentives to increase the educational attainment of youths for two main reasons: to reduce intergenerational transmission of inequality and to increase future economic growth. It is commonly advocated that financial constraints prevent pupils from the poorer backgrounds investing in their own education.” (Chevalier and Lanot, 2001, p. 19)