Empirically probing the quantity-quality model

This paper tests whether family size has a causal effect on girls' education in Mexico. It exploits son preference as the main source of random variation in the propensity to have more children, and estimates causal effects using instrumental variables. Overall, it finds no evidence of family size having an adverse effect on education, once the endogeneity of family size is accounted for. Results are robust to another commonly used instrument in this literature, the occurrence of twin births. A divisive concern throughout this literature is that the instruments are invalid, so that inferences including policy recommendations may be misleading. An important contribution of this paper is to allow for the possibility that the instruments are invalid and to provide an answer to the question of just how much the assumption of instrument exogeneity drives findings. It concludes that the assumption of exogeneity does not affect the results that much, and the effects of family size on girls' schooling remain extremely modest at most.

Are boys and girls affected differently when the household head leaves for good? Evidence from school and work choices in Colombia

This paper investigates how the permanent departure of the head from the household, mainly due to death or divorce, affects children's school enrolment and work participation in rural Colombia. In our empirical specification we use household-level fixed effects to deal with the fact that households that experience the departure of the head are likely to differ in unobserved ways from those that do not, and we also address the issue of non-random attrition from the panel. We find remarkably different effects for boys and girls. For boys, the adverse event reduces school participation and increases participation in paid work, whereas for girls we find evidence of the adverse event having a beneficial impact on schooling. To explain these differences, we provide evidence for boys consistent with the head's departure having an important effect through the income reduction associated with it, whereas for girls, changes in the household decision-maker appear to play an important role.Child labour; schooling; adverse event; income loss; credit and insurance market failures; bargaining

The impact of higher education finance on university participation in the UK (BIS research paper no.11)

In this paper we estimate the separate impacts of upfront fees, grants and maintenance loans on UK higher education participation. We use the panel data element of Labour Force Survey data on the university participation decisions of 18 year olds, covering the period 1992-2007, which saw great variation in HE finance, most importantly the introduction of up-front tuition fees and the abolition of student maintenance grants in 1998 and major reforms of 2004 in which maintenance grants were re-instated and up-front fees were replaced with deferred fees of £3000. To test the robustness of the results, and to help deal with potential measurement error, we create a pseudo-panel of participation by UK region over time and test a number of specifications. Our findings show that the impact of upfront tuition fees in 1998 had a small negative impact on participation among high income groups, while the package of reforms introduced in 2006 had no impact on participation, largely because tuition fees were accompanied by large increases in loans and grants

The Impact of Tuition Fees and Support on University

Understanding how policy can affect university participation is important for understanding how governments can promote human capital accumulation. In this paper, we estimate the separate impacts of tuition fees and maintenance grants on the decision to enter university in the UK. We use Labour Force Survey data covering 1992-2007, a period of important variation in higher education finance, which saw the introduction of up-front tuition fees and the abolition of maintenance grants in 1998, followed some eight years later by a shift to higher deferred fees and the reinstatement of maintenance grants. We create a pseudo-panel of university participation of cohorts defined by sex, region of residence and family background, and estimate a number of different specifications on these aggregated data. Our findings show that tuition fees have had a significant negative effect on participation, with a £1,000 increase in fees resulting in a decrease in participation of 3.9 percentage points, which equates to an elasticity of -0.14. Non-repayable support in the form of maintenance grants has had a positive effect on participation, with a £1,000 increase in grants resulting in a 2.6 percentage point increase in participation, which equates to an elasticity of 0.18. These findings are comparable to, but of a slightly lower magnitude than, those in the related US literature.university participation, higher education funding policies, tuition fees, maintenance grants, pseudo-panel

Higher education funding reforms in England : the distributional effects and the shifting balance of costs

This paper undertakes a quantitative analysis of substantial reforms to the system of higher education (HE) finance first announced in 2004 and then revised again in July 2007. The reforms introduced deferred fees for HE, payable by graduates through the tax system in the form of income-contingent repayments on loans subsidised by the government. Lifetime earnings that have been simulated by the authors using innovative methods, are used to analyse the likely distributional consequences of the reforms for graduates. It is shown that graduates with low lifetime earnings will pay less for their HE than graduates higher up the lifetime earnings distribution compared to the system operating before the reforms. Taxpayers will bear substantial costs due to the interest rate and debt write-off subsidies. The extent to which the reforms are likely to shift the balance of funding for HE between the public and private sector is also analysed, as well as the likely distributional consequences of a number of variations to the system such as removing the interest subsidy from the loans

Longitudinal predictors of weapon involvement in middle adolescence: Evidence from the UK Millennium Cohort Study

This study uses longitudinal data from the UK Millennium Cohort Study (N = 13,277) to examine the childhood and early adolescence factors that predict weapon involvement in middle adolescence, which in this study is exemplified by having carried or used a weapon. It finds that childhood experiences of low family income and domestic abuse between parents predict weapon involvement at age 17 years. Other predictors include childhood externalizing problems and self-harm in early adolescence. Further early adolescent behaviors and experiences that predict weapon involvement are own substance use, peer substance use, school exclusion, and high levels of electronic gaming. These findings provide concrete areas for targeting risk factors both in childhood and the early adolescent period, with an indication that early intervention and prevention are likely to reduce the need for later action

Are boys and girls affected differently when the household head leaves for good? Evidence from school and work choices in Colombia

This paper investigates how the permanent departure of the head from the household, mainly due to death or divorce, affects children's school enrolment and work participation in rural Colombia. In our empirical specification we use household-level fixed effects to deal with the fact that households that experience the departure of the head are likely to differ in unobserved ways from those that do not, and we also address the issue of non-random attrition from the panel. We find remarkably different effects for boys and girls. For boys, the adverse event reduces school participation and increases participation in paid work, whereas for girls we find evidence of the adverse event having a beneficial impact on schooling. To explain these differences, we provide evidence for boys consistent with the head's departure having an important effect through the income reduction associated with it, whereas for girls, changes in the household decision-maker appear to play an important role

Higher education funding reforms in England: the distributional effects and the shifting balance of costs

This paper undertakes a quantitative analysis of substantial reforms to the system of higher education (HE) finance in England, first announced in 2004 and revised in 2007. The reforms introduced deferred fees for HE, payable by graduates through the tax system via income-contingent repayments on loans subsidised by the government. The paper uses lifetime earnings simulated by the authors to consider the likely distributional consequences of the reforms for graduates. It also considers the costs of the reforms for taxpayers, and how the reforms are likely to shift the balance of funding for HE between the public and private sectors.

Intergenerational transmission of educational disadvantage: Education progression of children of care leavers compared to a general population sample

There is persistent evidence showing that care leavers tend to have lower educational outcomes compared to their peers. There is, however, less knowledge of whether this educational disadvantage transfers to the second generation. This study adopts a developmental contextual life-course approach to examine: (a) the extent of educational inequality of children of care leavers from school entry to public examinations at age 16; (b) the relative role of different psychosocial family resources as predictors of educational attainment; and (c) the role of early school readiness assessments as predictors of later educational attainment. Drawing on data collected from families living in England at the first sweep of the nationally representative UK Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) (n = 11,514), the findings suggest intergenerational transmission of educational disadvantage among children of care leavers (n = 287), which is manifest in a direct assessment of school readiness (age 3), at the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) (age 5) and in General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) attainment (age 16). However, once inequalities in family socio-economic background or area deprivation and housing are controlled for, children of care leavers perform comparably in their educational progression to those whose mothers had no experience of being in care (n = 11,227). Moreover, the findings highlight the significance of early school readiness assessments in predicting later educational attainment for the whole sample. Findings are discussed regarding their implications for policy, in particular the need to address educational inequality for children in care, area allocation and housing that is offered to care leavers, and the general importance of early interventions

The relationship between maternal care experience and early child development: Evidence from the UK

We examine the relationship between maternal out-of-home care (OHC) experience and her child’s early behavioural, emotional and cognitive development, drawing on data collected for the UK Millennium Cohort Study. We observe stark raw differences between the early development of children with OHC and non-OHC mothers, with children of OHC mothers performing worse across all domains – cognitive, behavioural and emotional. While the differences in cognitive (language) and emotional development are explained by differences in family demographic characteristics and socio-economic status, the associations between OHC and both behavioural problems and school readiness remain. Behavioural differences are explained by differences in parenting behaviours and the quality of the parent-child relationship across OHC and non-OHC mothers; school readiness differences are fully attenuated once maternal health and wellbeing measures are accounted for. Our paper highlights the importance of support for care leavers who become parents and for nurturing parent-child relationships in helping to break the intergenerational transmission of disadvantage