The Reliability of Family Background Effects on Status Attainment: Multiple Informant Models

This article sets out to investigate to what extent conventional retrospective measurement of family background leads to biases in the effects of family background in status attainment research. Multiple informant models show that the effect of father’s educational attainment on respondent’s educational attainment is 41% greater than conventional research suggests, and that the effect of father’s occupational status on respondent’s educational attainment becomes zero. The direct effect of respondent’s educational attainment on respondent’s occupational status is 21% greater after the unreliability in the respondent’s answers has been taken into account. We conclude that measurement error seriously biases conclusions about the status attainment process in the Netherlands.     

FDI activity and worker compensation: evidence from US non-manufacturing industries

This study examines worker compensation effects of FDI activity in US non-manufacturing industry sectors. A clustered standard error correction is used when estimating wage and non-wage compensation equations, with special attention given to FDI’s effect by worker educational attainment and union status. Wage findings reveal an FDI-wage premium for highly educated non-union workers and FDI-union rent erosion for all educational-gender groups excluding females with low educational attainment. Non-wage compensation analysis reveals FDI activity is generally associated with significantly higher probabilities of workers receiving employer financed non-wage compensation for union and non-union workers regardless of their level of educational attainment.     

How interethnic marriages affect the educational attainment of children: Evidence from a natural experiment

The allocation of Moluccan immigrants across towns and villages at arrival in the Netherlands and the subsequent formation of interethnic marriages resemble a natural experiment. The exogenous variation in marriage formation allows us to estimate the causal effect of interethnic marriages on the educational attainment of children from such marriages. We find that children from Moluccan fathers and native mothers have a higher educational attainment than children from ethnic homogeneous Moluccan couples or children from a Moluccan mother and a native father.     

Self-employment,educational attainment and employment protection legislation

We analyse how educational attainment and employment protection influence an individual's decision to become self-employed. By altering expected income from dependent employment, employment protection is likely to affect an individual's choice of occupation, although such a link has not been established in the literature so far. We argue that an interaction between an individual's educational attainment and the institution of employment protection exists when it comes to the decision regarding whether to become self-employed. Based on survey data from OECD countries, we find evidence for a negative interaction, and conclude that only after taking this interaction into account can the effect of employment protection and educational attainment on self-employment rates be assessed.     

The status of academic women in the 1990s No longer outsiders, but not yet equals

This paper reexamines the status of women in the academic labor market relative to men to determine how much progress has been made in achieving equity. Two questions will be addressed here: (1) do men and women have equal access to faculty employment in higher education, and (2) are they equally successful with regard to traditional career goals and compensation? Analyses are conducted on the educational attainment of women, their representation among faculty, their time allocation and research productivity, and their success in academia as represented by their rank attainment and earnings. While the results show that women have made considerable strides in entering the academic labor market, there is still an unexplained gap between men and women in terms of their earnings and career progression.     

Testing a method to estimate county-level demand for educational attainment

Recent changes in federal support for local workforce training programs have created an increased need for methods of assessing demand for educational attainment in sub-state regions. This research extends current non-survey methods for estimating demand for educational attainment at the county level. It then evaluates the non-survey method on theoretical grounds, and compares survey and non-survey estimates for two West Virginia counties. We found significant differences between survey and non-survey results and conclude that current non-survey methodology will not consistently provide reasonably accurate estimates. We thus propose adjustments to this methodology that should improve its accuracy. Many, if not most, jurisdictions do not have the expertise or funds to carry out periodic employment surveys. Many local policymakers would therefore benefit from development of an inexpensive, straightforward non-survey methodology that provides reasonably accurate information on local employer demand for labor force characteristics such as educational attainment.     

Assessing the economic costs of high school noncompletion

Disparities in educational attainment exist across states. There are costs, both to the individual and society, associated with low levels of educational attainment. This research estimates the costs of high school noncompletion in terms of income loss for each state. The results suggest that: 1) there are substantial economic costs associated with high school noncompletion ($727 billion in lost income nationally); 2) costs vary widely across states; and 3) in general, states with relatively low levels of per capita expenditures on education incur the greatest losses in income from high school noncompletion.     

Race, Financial Aid Awards and college Attendance

A bstract . The impact of race on college and university admission and award decisions is examined using data from the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972. The effects of race and other factors on the choice of an individual's educational attainment are also studied. Financial aid award equations are estimated. The results indicate that college and university admissions departments have actively worked to encourage the enrollment of African-American students. It appears that the lower average educational attainment of African-Americans is the result of differences in parental income, education , and geographical location.     

Family income and children's education: Using the Norwegian oil boom as a natural experiment

Parental income is positively correlated with children's educational attainment. This paper addresses the causality of this observed link. We have a unique data set for Norwegians born in the period 1967–1969, with a measure of permanent family income in the children's adolescence. This enables us to examine the long-term effect of family income on children's educational attainment. The Norwegian oil shock in the 1970s is used as an instrument, because this – in some regions but not in others – implied a general increase in income unrelated to parents' abilities. This variation in income is used to estimate the causal effect of family income on children's educational attainment. We find no such causal relationship. This result is robust with respect to different specification tests.     

Earning or Learning? How Extending Closing Time in the Retail Sector Affects Youth Employment and Education

This paper estimates the causal impact of increased demand for low‐skilled workers on youth employment, and short and long run education. We exploit quasi‐experimental demand shifts for retail workers due to changes in allowed opening hours for retail stores across Norwegian municipalities. We find that relaxed restrictions on opening hours increased employment in the sector and permanently reduced educational attainment for affected high school students. The results suggest that policies or shocks that increase demand for low‐skilled workers in the short term might have negative long‐run effects in terms of reduced educational attainment.     

Ethnic capital and intergenerational transmission of educational attainment

This paper studies the role of ethnicity in the intergenerational transmission of educational attainment within the framework outlined by Borjas (Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1992, 107(1), 123–150). Relying on heteroskedasticity to identify parameters in the presence of endogenous regressors, I find evidence that the ordinary least squares estimates of the effect of ethnic capital on intergenerational transmission of education are biased upwards due to the transfer of unobserved ability. I also find that, while the role of parental capital has declined over time, ethnic capital has a relatively constant effect on intergenerational transmission of educational attainment.     

EFFECTS OF HIV/AIDS ON CHILDREN'S EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT: A SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW

Over the last three decades, 35 million people have died of AIDS. As a result, HIV/AIDS has brought about a significant reduction in human capital, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Several studies have examined the effects of HIV/AIDS on human capital, in particular educational attainment. These studies have examined different countries, datasets, and educational outcomes. This systematic literature review provides a comprehensive up-to-date overview of peer-reviewed papers published in English by focusing on the main mechanisms that influence the effects of HIV/AIDS on educational outcomes. These are sickness of the child, orphanhood, and sickness of parents. The results show that educational outcomes of HIV-infected children, AIDS orphans, and children with HIV-infected parents are affected differently. HIV-infected children mainly miss school days due to illness and medical appointments, and orphans mainly face financial problems and lack motivation in their education, while children with HIV-infected parents may have to take care of their sick parents or face financial problems that affect their education. Distinguishing these groups of children could help to formulate policies that adequately improve schooling outcomes of these vulnerable children.     

Do Mothers Matter? A Comparison of Models of the Influence of Mothers' and Fathers' Educational and Occupational Status on Children's Educational Attainment

The first objective of this article is to clarify which model best captures the structure and trend of the influence of social origin on children's education. The second objective is to analyse how general conclusions on historical trends in educational reproduction change if we add mother's status background to the model. Six contrasting hypotheses are derived fromthe body of literature dealing with models on families' socioeconomic status. All hypotheses are translated into empirical models and their explained variance is compared. A pooled data set is used that contains data from the Netherlands, West Germany, and the USA. The Modified Dominance Model, that distinguishes the influence of the highest from thelowest status parent, has the best model fit. Regarding the second objective we see that adding the mother's influence to that of the father's does not change general conclusions on trends in educational reproduction. Over time the influence of both parents decreases continuously. However, the influence of the mother's education and occupational status on children's educational attainment is substantive.     

Education and Intergenerational Mobility in Occupations

A bstract The problem of measuring the intergenerational transmission of inequality and its implications for social welfare is studied. A possible decomposition of relevant factors–namely, educational attainments and other factors–is proposed and applied to three individual data sets regarding Germany, Italy, and the United States. The main result is that educational attainment is responsible for almost half of observed immobility The possibility that increasing equality of opportunity in entering the educational system may result in less inequality in income distribution is considered.     

Estimating the validity of administrative variables

Administrative data have become more important for both official statistics and academic research. One possible problem with such data is that they are biased and have a low validity. Although this problem is often mentioned in a qualitative respect, the validity is seldom quantitatively measured. This article presents a method to estimate the validity of administrative variables. By applying the classical test theory, the validity can be determined by using linked survey and administrative data which should measure the same concepts. This idea is elaborated with an empirical example in which the construct validity of age, gender, educational attainment and wages is determined simultaneously. A linear structural equations model with a measurement component is used to compute the construct validity. The analyses reveal that educational attainment and wages show some bias, but not higher than the bias found in the survey.     

Generational Dimensions of Neoliberal and Post‐Fordist Restructuring: The Changing Characteristics of Young Adults and Growing Income Inequality in Montreal and Vancouver

There is growing concern over income inequality and its generational dimensions. Post‐Fordist and neoliberal restructuring have reshaped urban labour markets, resulting in growing inequalities that disproportionately afflict younger workers. This article empirically analyses the transition as experienced in Montreal and Vancouver, two Canadian cities that have undergone restructuring in different ways. The study of young adults' changing incomes reveals growing intra‐ and inter‐cohort inequality, and an increasing intergenerational income gap in both cities. Income inequality is greater in Vancouver, with its more pronounced post‐Fordist labour force composition and neoliberalized governance context. Known factors such as occupation and gender affect the earnings structure, but educational attainment has increased the most in terms of its effect on incomes. Inequalities among young adults are expected to magnify in the future due to unevenness in educational attainment. Urban research ought to pay close attention to the role of education in structuring inequalities, and the ways the impact of restructuring is unevenly distributed across generations.     

Attitudes to pay systems:an exploratory study within and across cultures

The present study investigates employees’preferences for criteria that are used in pay systems, namely, performance, cost of living, tenure, educational qualification, collective bargaining, skill, market rate, responsibility and special demands. The study also explored variation and similarities of employees’preferences for the criteria across four countries, namely Australia (N = 162), Indonesia (N = 100), Malaysia (N = 129) and Hong Kong (N = 39). The results indicate that the respondents prefer multiple criteria to determine their pay. Preferences for length of service and educational attainment were found to be significantly different across countries, particularly between Australian and Asian samples (Indonesian and Malaysia). This variation is, in part, attributed to cultural differences. Other variables, such as age, educational qualification, position, and industry sector, have been found to be significant correlates of preference for pay systems. Implications for reward management have been discussed.     

Estimates of the return to schooling in Sweden from a large sample of twins

A large sample of twins was used to examine whether conventional estimates of the return to schooling in Sweden are biased because ability is omitted from the earnings–schooling relationship. Ignoring measurement error, the results indicate that omitting ability from the earnings–schooling relationship leads to estimates that are positively biased. However, reasonable estimates of the measurement-error-adjusted returns are both above and below the unadjusted estimates, showing that the results depend crucially on a parameter not known at this time. However, an estimate of the reliability ratio was obtained using two measures on educational attainment. With this estimate of the reliability ratio, the measurement-error-adjusted estimate of the return to schooling in the sample of identical twins indicates that there is at most a slight ability bias in the conventional estimates of the return to schooling. The fundamental assumption of this kind of study is that within-pair differences in educational attainment are randomly determined. This assumption was also tested, but no strong evidence to reject it was found.     

Urban density and pupil attainment

We explore the association between urban density and pupil attainment using three cohorts of pupils in schooling in England. Although—as widely recognised—attainment in dense urban places is low on average, this is not because urban environments disadvantage pupils, but because the most disadvantaged pupils with low average attainments attend the most urbanised schools. To control for this, we exploit changes in urban density faced by pupils during compulsory transition from Primary to Secondary school, and measure educational progress at the end of the Secondary phase, relative to attainment at the end of Primary schooling. Our results suggest that there are small but significant benefits from education in schools in more densely urbanised settings. We detect this density advantage even amongst pupils moving relatively short distances between Primary and Secondary schools within urban areas, so we cannot attribute it to broad urbanisation effects experienced by pupils making rural–urban school moves. A more likely explanation lies in greater school choice and competition between closely co-located educational providers.     

A benefit/cost model to evaluate educational programs

Essentially, a benefit/cost model provides a procedure to evaluate a project in terms of its economic objectives. The analytic task is to determine the present value of all benefits less the present value of all costs, so that the projects which maximise this difference can be selected. There are private benefits (those appropriated by the persons directly involved in the project), and social benefits (those derived by others because of the project) that should also be taken into account when public policy is involved. Limitations of data preclude us from considering all the benefits, but in the present study of the benefits of an educational program, the following have been incorporated: (1) increases in earnings due to attaining higher levels of education; (2) benefits that accrue to the offspring of the present generation resulting from the influence of the educational attainment of parents on that of their children; and (3) the reduction in juvenile crime.

The model that is used to estimate these benefits includes thirteen separate equations. A major ingredient of all of these equations is represented by equation 4 in the model:

According to this equation, the private benefits of additional education are calculated as the difference between the expected economic returns with the program (designated T) and the expected economic returns without the program. Expected economic returns are estimated by the product of lifetime earnings for each level of education (V_i) times the probability distribution of obtaining the various levels of education (P_i), where i designates a level of education. These benefits will be different for individuals with different characteristics, designated ε.

The parameters of the model have been estimated by the use of Census data for earnings, and various special survey data for the probabilities of educational attainment and committing juvenile crimes. Essentially an educational program changes the probabilities of educational attainment, increasing the probability of graduating from high school and going on to college.

In this study, we applied the model to a Title I ESEA, program in San Francisco, California, during 1966–1967. Since the program was implemented in the elementary grades, we used the mathematics of Markov Chains to estimate the probabilities of eventual grade level attainment. We found that prior to the program, about half of the disadvantaged non-Negro males and considerably more than half of the Negro males could be expected to be dropouts. The model showed, however, that a Title I program in San Francisco costing $220 per child sufficiently raised test scores in elementary grades so that the expected dropout rates were reduced about 3 per cent for non-Negro and 2 per cent for Negro male pupils.