Are the Labour Market Benefits to Schooling Different for Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal People

It is well documented that Aboriginal people generally have lower levels of educational attainment than other groups in Canada, but little is known about the reasons behind this gap. This study is the first of two by the same author investigating the issue in detail. This initial paper focuses on one potential reason for differences in educational attainment between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal individuals: the possibility that Aboriginal individuals reap fewer labour market benefits from additional schooling than do their non-Aboriginal counterparts. The results of this analysis, which is based on the 2006 Census of Population, show that additional schooling is generally associated with a larger decline in the probability of being unemployed for Aboriginal people compared to non-Aboriginal people. In terms of wages and salaries, additional schooling generally yields about the same benefits for both groups. The results hold whether Aboriginal people live off-reserve, on-reserve, or in northern communities. There is also no evidence that Aboriginal people who eventually choose to pursue further education following high school are a more select group than their non-Aboriginal counterparts in terms of academic performance; this suggests that the results in this study are not likely to be explained by self-selection. Furthermore, there is little evidence that perceptions of the benefits to schooling are any different for Aboriginal youth than for non-Aboriginal youth. These findings suggest that the labour market benefits to schooling are not likely to be a factor behind the lower levels of educational attainment among Aboriginal people.Educational attainment, Labour market outcomes, Aboriginal

Earnings Losses of Displaced Workers: Canadian Evidence from a Large Administrative Database on Firm Closures and Mass Layoffs

Using Statistics Canada’s Longitudinal Worker File, we document short-term and long-term earnings losses for a large (10%) sample of Canadian workers who lost their job through firm closures or mass layoffs during the late 1980s and the 1990s. Our use of a nationally representative sample allows us to examine how earnings losses vary across age groups, gender, industries and firms of different sizes. Furthermore, we conduct separate analyses for workers displaced only through firm closures and for a broader sample displaced either through firm closures or mass layoffs. Our main finding is that while the long-term earnings losses experienced on average by workers who are displaced through firm closures or mass layoffs are important, those experienced by displaced workers with considerable seniority appear to be even more substantial. Consistent with findings from the United States by Jacobson, Lalonde and Sullivan (1993), high-seniority displaced men experience long-term earnings losses that represent between 18% and 35% of their pre-displacement earnings. For their female counterparts, the corresponding estimates vary between 24% and 35%.Layoffs; Job Losses; Employment; Worker Displacement; Earnings Losses

Is Debt Relief as Good as Liquidity? The Impact of Prospective Student Debt on Post-Secondary Attendance among Low-Income Youth

In this study, I estimate the impact of offering two large non-refundable grants to low-income Canadian youth on postsecondary attendance. The grants had two interesting features. First, they were clawed back from loans, thus reducing costs but providing no additional liquidity. Second, the grants were only available to students if parental income was below a fixed threshold. This sharp discontinuity in the offer of the grants provides for near ideal conditions to study their causal impact, closely mimicking random assignment. Despite the large size of the grants (up to $6,000 or$7,000), the fact that students were automatically assessed for the grants with their regular student loans application, and evidence that most Canadian youth are at least aware of non-refundable study grant opportunities, I find that the grants had no impact on postsecondary or university attendance. Some policy implications are discussed.Access to postsecondary, student debt

Post-secondary attendance by parental income: Comparing the US and Canada

This paper makes three contributions to the literature on educational attainment gaps by family income. First, we conduct a parallel empirical analysis of the effects of parental income on post-secondary (PS) attendance for recent high school cohorts in both the U.S. and Canada using data from the 1997 Cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and Youth in Transition Survey. We estimate substantially smaller PS attendance gaps by parental income in Canada relative to the U.S., even after controlling for family background and adolescent cognitive achievement. Second, we develop an intergenerational schooling choice model that sheds light on the role of four potentially important determinants of the family income - PS attendance gap: (i) borrowing constraints, (ii) a 'consumption value' of attending PS school, (iii) the earnings structure, and (iv) tuition policies and the structure of financial aid. Third, we document Canada - U.S. differences in financial returns to PS schooling, tuition policy, and financial aid, discussing the extent to which these differences contribute to the stronger family income - attendance relationship in the U.S. Most notably, we document the dependence of both non-repayable financial aid and government student loan access on parental income in both countries

Post-Secondary Attendance by Parental Income in the U.S. and Canada: What Role for Financial Aid Policy?

This paper examines the implications of tuition and need-based financial aid policies for family income – post-secondary (PS) attendance relationships. We first conduct a parallel empirical analysis of the effects of parental income on PS attendance for recent high school cohorts in both the U.S. and Canada using data from the 1997 Cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and Youth in Transition Survey. We estimate substantially smaller PS attendance gaps by parental income in Canada relative to the U.S., even after controlling for family background, adolescent cognitive achievement, and local residence fixed effects. We next document that U.S. public tuition and financial aid policies are actually more generous to low-income youth than are Canadian policies. By contrast, Canada offers more generous aid to middle-class youth than does the U.S. These findings suggest that the much stronger family income – PS attendance relationship in the U.S. is not driven by differences in the need-based nature of financial aid policies. Based on previous estimates of the effects of tuition and aid on PS attendance, we consider how much stronger income – attendance relationships would be in the absence of need-based aid and how much additional aid would need to be offered to lower income families to eliminate existing income – attendance gaps entirely.

An empirical investigation of the determinants of human capital among Canadian youth

The objective of this thesis is to identify various determinants of human capital development among Canadian youth. Three mediating agents are examined: parents, schools, and government. Considerable attention is paid throughout to identifying causal relationships with empirical data. The first chapter introduces the thesis by discussing its main goals, as well as the importance of the topic. This chapter also summarizes each of the following substantive chapters. I explore the relationship between family size and various components of the child quality production function in the second chapter. The findings suggest that larger families lead to reduced parental investments in children. Despite this, standardized test scores do not decline with family size. Three possible reasons for this puzzle are explored. In the third chapter, I estimate the relationship between fertility and the allocation of paid and unpaid labour among couples. Results indicate that additional children lead to a reduction in paid hours and to an even larger increase in unpaid hours among mothers. Additional children are not related to paternal paid hours, although fathers spend slightly more time performing unpaid childcare. In the fourth chapter, I estimate the impact of schooling on academic performance in high school. Additional schooling is associated with significant improvements in reading, mathematics, and science performance, but it confers the same benefits in each area to students across the conditional distribution of academic performance, as well as to both sexes and to students from high and low income families. I examine the relationship between prospective student debt load and postsecondary attendance in the fifth chapter. The results indicate that reduced prospective debt load raise university enrolment only among students facing lower net returns to attending. The final chapter summarizes the findings, highlights the contributions to the literature, discusses policy implications, and sets forth directions for future research

Post-Secondary Attendance by Parental Income in the U.S. and Canada: What Role for Financial Aid Policy?

This paper examines the implications of tuition and need-based financial aid policies for family income - post-secondary (PS) attendance relationships. We first conduct a parallel empirical analysis of the effects of parental income on PS attendance for recent high school cohorts in both the U.S. and Canada using data from the 1997 Cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and Youth in Transition Survey. We estimate substantially smaller PS attendance gaps by parental income in Canada relative to the U.S., even after controlling for family background, adolescent cognitive achievement, and local residence fixed effects. We next document that U.S. public tuition and financial aid policies are actually more generous to low-income youth than are Canadian policies. By contrast, Canada offers more generous aid to middle-class youth than does the U.S. These findings suggest that the much stronger family income - PS attendance relationship in the U.S. is not driven by differences in the need-based nature of financial aid policies. Based on previous estimates of the effects of tuition and aid on PS attendance, we consider how much stronger income - attendance relationships would be in the absence of need-based aid and how much additional aid would need to be offered to lower income families to eliminate existing income - attendance gaps entirely