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The impact of parental income and education on the schooling of their children
Date Issued
2010-07-01
Date Available
2011-01-07T14:42:00Z
Abstract
This paper addresses the intergenerational transmission of education and investigates the extent to which early school leaving (at age 16) may be due to variations in parental background. An important contribution of the paper is to distinguish between the causal effects of parental income and parental education levels. Least squares estimation reveals conventional results – weak effects of income (when the child is 16), stronger effects of maternal education than paternal, and stronger effects on sons than daughters. We find that the education effects remain significant even when household income is included. However, when we use instrumental variable methods to simultaneously account for the endogeneity of parental education and paternal income, only maternal education remains significant (for daughters only) and becomes stronger. These estimates are consistent to various set of instruments. The impact of paternal income varies between specifications but become insignificant in our preferred specification. Our results provide limited evidence that policies alleviating income constraints at age 16 can alter schooling decisions but that policies increasing permanent income would lead to increased participation (especially for daughters). There is also evidence of intergenerational transmissions of education choice from mothers to daughters.
Sponsorship
Not applicable
Type of Material
Working Paper
Publisher
University College Dublin. Geary Institute
Series
UCD Geary Institute Discussion Paper Series
WP 10 32
Subject – LCSH
Parent and child
Intergenerational relations
Dropouts
Dropout behavior, Prediction of
Web versions
Language
English
Status of Item
Not peer reviewed
This item is made available under a Creative Commons License
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