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Poor Little Children: The Socioeconomic Gap in Parental Responses to School Disadvantage

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  • Berniell, Inés
  • Estrada, Ricardo

Abstract

In this paper, we study how parents react to a widely-used school policy that puts some children at a learning disadvantage. Specifically, we first document that, in line with findings in other countries, younger children in Spain perform significantly worse at school than their older peers and – key to causal interpretation – that for children born in winter this effect is not due to birth seasonality. Furthermore, the age of school entry effect is significantly greater among children from disadvantaged families. To understand why, we analyze detailed data on parental investment and find that college-educated parents increase their time investment and choose schools with better inputs when their children are the youngest at school entry, while non-college-educated parents do not.

Suggested Citation

  • Berniell, Inés & Estrada, Ricardo, 2017. "Poor Little Children: The Socioeconomic Gap in Parental Responses to School Disadvantage," Research Department working papers 1112, CAF Development Bank Of Latinamerica.
  • Handle: RePEc:dbl:dblwop:1112
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    Cited by:

    1. Caterina Calsamiglia & Annalisa Loviglio, 2020. "Maturity and school outcomes in an inflexible system: evidence from Catalonia," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 1-49, March.
    2. Nora Lustig & Valentina Martinez Pabon & Guido Neidhöfer & Mariano Tommasi, 2020. "Short and Long-Run Distributional Impacts of COVID-19 in Latin America," Working Papers 2013, Tulane University, Department of Economics.
    3. Cristina Borra & Libertad González Luna & David Patiño, 2021. "Maternal age and infant health," Economics Working Papers 1791, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    4. Berniell, Lucila & Caccianini, Antonella & Sanguinetti, Ignacio, . "Digitalizacio\x{0301}n de las licencias me\x{0301}dicas en el sistema educativo pu\x{0301}blico de la Provincia de Buenos Aires: Modernizacio\x{0301}n del Estado para una mejor educacio\x{0301}n," Books, CAF Development Bank Of Latinamerica, number 1548.
    5. Chang, Simon & Cobb-Clark, Deborah A. & Salamanca, Nicolás, 2022. "Parents’ responses to teacher qualifications," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 419-446.
    6. Borra, Cristina & González, Libertad & Patiño, David, 2023. "School Starting Age and Infant Health," IZA Discussion Papers 16676, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Sergi Sánchez-Coll, 2023. "Born this way: the effect of an unexpected child benefit at birth on longer-term educational outcomes," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 14(1), pages 105-141, March.
    8. Ismael Sanz & J .D. Tenaa, 2020. "A Natural Experiment on the Effect of Instruction Time and Quality: Lessons for the Covid-19 Outbreak," Working Papers 202032, University of Liverpool, Department of Economics.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Educación; Economía; Equidad e inclusión social; Investigación socioeconómica; Pobreza; Políticas públicas; Familia;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General
    • D10 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - General

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