37 research outputs found
Estimating the labour market returns from qualifications gained in English further education using the Individualised Learner Record (ILR)
The Impact of Truancy on Educational Attainment: A Bivariate Ordered Probit Estimator with Mixed Effects
This paper investigates the relationship between educational attainment and truancy. Using data from the Youth Cohort Study of England and Wales, we estimate the causal impact that truancy has on educational attainment at age 16. Problematic is that both truancy and attainment are measured as ordered responses requiring a bivariate ordered probit model to account for the potential endogeneity of truancy. Furthermore, we extent the 'naĂŻve' bivariate ordered probit estimator to include mixed effects which allows us to estimate the distribution of the truancy effect on educational attainment. This estimator offers a more flexible parametric setting to recover the causal effect of truancy on education and results suggest that the impact of truancy on education is indeed more complex than implied by the naĂŻve estimator.educational attainment, truancy, bivariate ordered probit, mixed effects
Measuring the Returns to Lifelong Learning
This paper investigates the returns to lifelong learning, which is interpreted as the attainment of qualifications following entry into the labour market. For a number of reasons our analysis of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) represents an important addition to the existing evidence base. We allow for financial and non-financial returns to lifelong learning by using as dependent variables both (i) hourly earnings and (ii) CAMSIS score. A fixed effects specification counters the potential biases that arise from unobserved individual heterogeneity and the inclusion of lags allows estimation of how the returns to lifelong learning evolve over a ten year period after the qualification is obtained. We find evidence of earnings and occupation status returns using a broad categorisation of lifelong learning for both men and women, but more variability in returns when disaggregated NVQ-equivalent categories of qualification are considered. Our findings are broadly in line with existing evidence within the UK, which is mostly based on the analysis of cohort studies. 0f particular interest is the finding that returns to women materialise much sooner after the attainment of a qualification, than is the case for their male counterparts.Lifelong learning, earnings, social status
The Effect of High School Employment on Educational Attainment: A Conditional Difference-in-Differences Approach
Using American panel data from the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88) this paper investigates the effect of working during grade 12 on attainment. We exploit the longitudinal nature of the NELS by employing, for the first time in the related literature, a semiparametric propensity score matching approach combined with difference-in- differences. This identification strategy allows us to address in a flexible way selection on both observables and unobservables associated with part-time work decisions. Once such factors are controlled for, insignificant effects on reading and math scores are found. We show that these results are robust to a matching approach combined with difference-in-difference-in-differences which allows differential time trends in attainment according to the working status in grade 12.education, evaluation, propensity score matching
Spatial and social mobility in England and Wales: a sub-national analysis of differences and trends over time
Recent studies of social mobility have documented that not only who your parents are, but also where you grow up, substantially influences subsequent life chances. We bring these two concepts together to study social mobility in England and Wales, in three post-war generations, using linked Decennial Census data. Our findings show considerable spatial variation in rates of absolute and relative mobility, as well as how these have changed over time. While upward mobility increased in every region between the mid-1950s and the early 1980s, this shift varied across different regions and tailed off for more recent cohorts. We also explore how domestic migration is related to social mobility, finding that those who moved out of their region of origin had higher rates of upward mobility compared to those who stayed, although this difference narrowed over time
The Wage Returns to Education over the Life-Cycle: Heterogeneity and the Role of Experience
This paper re-examines the wage returns to the 1972 Raising of the School Leaving Age (RoSLA) in England and Wales using a high-quality administrative panel dataset covering the relevant cohorts for almost 40 years of their labour market careers. With best practice regression discontinuity methods we find at best a zero return to the additional education for men. However, we contend that regression discontinuity methods in this context will give unreliable estimates of the return. Using the panel data to correct for this we find a local average treatment effect of 7% over the lifetime for this additional year of education
Declining Social Mobility? Evidence from five linked Censuses in England and Wales 1971-2011
In this paper we add to the existing evidence base on recent trends in inter-generational social mobility in England and Wales for cohorts born in the latter part of the twentieth century. We analyse data from the Office for National Statistics Longitudinal Study (ONS-LS), which links individual records from the five decennial censuses between 1971 and 2011. The ONS-LS is an excellent data resource for the study of social mobility because it has a very large sample size, excellent population coverage, and low rates of nonresponse and attrition. Additionally, the structure of the study means that the occupations of LS-membersâ parents can be observed when they were children and their progress in the labour market followed at regular intervals into middle age. For men the LS shows a trend of declining upward and increasing downward mobility between cohorts born in the late 1950s and late 1970s. For women, the trend is in the opposite direction â increasing upward mobility â although this is only evident when destination state is measured when women were in their thirties. By the time they had reached their forties, the trend toward upward mobility has, if anything, reversed. Counter to prevailing beliefs, our results show no evidence of relative social mobility âgrinding to a haltâ, let alone going into reverse. Indeed, we find a small but significant increase in social class fluidity during this period for both men and women
Ethnic differences in intergenerational housing mobility in England and Wales
Home ownership is the largest component of wealth for most households and its intergenerational transmission underpins the production and reproduction of economic inequalities across generations. Yet, little is currently known about ethnic differences in the intergenerational transmission of housing tenure. In this paper we use linked Census data covering 1971-2011 to document rates of intergenerational housing tenure mobility across ethnic groups in England and Wales. We find that while home ownership declined across all ethnic groups during this period, there were substantial differences between them. Black, Pakistani and Bangladeshi households experienced the strongest intergenerational link between parent and child housing tenure, and Black individuals had the highest rates of downward housing mobility. In contrast, those of Indian origin had homeownership rates similar to White British families, and a weaker link between parent and child housing tenure. These patterns are likely to exacerbate existing gradients in other dimensions of ethnicity-based inequality, now and in the future
Places and preferences: a longitudinal analysis of self-selection and contextual effects
Contextual theories of political behaviour assert that the contexts in which people live influence their political beliefs and vote choices. Most studies of political assimilation, however, rely on cross-sectional data and fail to distinguish contextual influence from self-selection of individuals into areas. This paper advances understanding of this longstanding controversy by tracking thousands of individuals over an 18-year period in England. We observe individual-level left-right position and party identification before and after residential moves across areas with different political orientations. We find evidence of both non-random selection into areas and assimilation of new entrants to the majority political orientation. However, these effects are contingent on the type of area an individual moves to and, moreover, contextual effects are weak and dominated by the larger effect of self-selection into areas