Economics Seminar: Early, late or never? When does parental education impact child outcomes?

When?

Wednesday 1 February 2012, 16:00 to 17:30

Where?

04AD00

Open to:

Public, Staff, Students

Speaker:

Dr. Matt Dickson

Dr. Matt Dickson (UCD)

"Early, late or never? When does parental education impact child outcomes?" (with Paul Gregg.)

Abstract

We study the intergenerational effects of parents’ education on their children’s educational outcomes. The endogeneity of parental education is addressed by exploiting the shock to education levels induced by the 1972 Raising of the School Leaving Age (RoSLA) in England and Wales. Using data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children – a rich cohort dataset of children born in the early 1990s in Avon, England – allows us to examine the timing of impacts throughout the child’s life, from pre-school assessments through the school years to the final exams at the end of the compulsory schooling period. We find that increasing parental education has a positive causal effect on children’s outcomes that is evident at age 5 and continues to be visible up to and including the high stakes exams taken at age 16. Children of parents affected by the reform gain results approximately 0.1 standard deviations higher than those whose parents were not impacted. Focusing on the lower educated parents where we would expect there to be more of an impact, the effect is indeed larger: children of these parents gaining results approximately 0.2 standard deviations higher.