Family Background, Family Income, Cognitive Tests Scores, Behavioural Scales and their Relationship with Post-secondary Education Participation: Evidence from the NLSCY
This paper exploits the panel feature of the Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY) and the large diversity of measures collected on the children ad their families over 6 cycles (1994-1995 to 2004-2005) to explain high school graduation and postsecondary education (PSE) choices of Canadian youth aged 18 to 21 observed in the most recent wave of the survey. In estimating how family background, family income, cognitive abilities, non-cognitive abilities and behavioural scores influence schooling choices they can be used as markers for identifying children at risk of not pursuing PSE. We focus on the impact of measures that are specific to the NLSCY which contains a host of scores on several dimensions such as the cognitive achievement of children (reading and math test scores); behavioural scores that measure the levels of hyperactivity, aggression, and pro-sociality; scores that measure self-esteem and self-control (non-cognitive abilities); and, family scores that measure the quality of parenting, family dysfunction, of neighbourhoods and schools quality. The math and reading scores are particularly interesting because they are computed from objective tests and are not based on any type of recall, as compared, for example, with the Youth in Transition Survey (YITS) data set. Despite the fact that income, as measured as the mean income ($2002) of the family during cycles 1 to 4, does not seem to be a key player for PSE attendance or high school graduation, the sign of its effect is generally positive and non-linear, increases for children in very low income will have a large effect that those with higher levels. More importantly, several variables that are characteristics of low-income families play a key role for schooling attainment. For example, being from a single-parent/guardian home with a poorly educated PMK and with less than (perceived) excellent/very good health or with high levels of hyperactivity for males or high levels of aggression for young teenage females will almost negate any chance of attaining the level of PSE.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Carneiro, Pedro & Heckman, James J., 2003.
"Human Capital Policy,"
IZA Discussion Papers
821, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
[Downloadable!]
Other versions:
James Heckman & Pedro Carneiro, 2003.
"Human Capital Policy,"
NBER Working Papers
9495, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)