IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/aia/ginidp/65.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

GINI DP 65: Socioeconomic gradients in children’s cognitive skills: are cross-country comparisons robust to who reports family background?

Author

Listed:
  • Jerrim, J.
  • John Micklewright

    (Department of Quantitative Social Science, Institute of Education University of London)

Abstract

The international surveys of pupil achievement – PISA, TIMSS, and PIRLS – have been widely used to compare socioeconomic gradients in children’s cognitive abilities across countries. Socioeconomic status is typically measured drawing on children’s reports of family or home characteristics rather than information provided by their parents. There is a well established literature based on other survey sources on the measurement error that may result from child reports. But there has been very little work on the implications for the estimation of socioeconomic gradients in test scores in the international surveys, and especially their variation across countries. We investigate this issue drawing on data from PISA and PIRLS, focusing on three socioeconomic indicators for which both child and parental reports are present for some countries: father’s occupation, parental education, and the number of books in the family home. Our results suggest that children’s reports of their father’s occupation provide a reliable basis on which to base comparisons across countries in socioeconomic gradients in reading test scores. The same is not true, however, for children’s reports of the number of books in the home – a measure commonly used – while results for parental education are rather mixed.

Suggested Citation

  • Jerrim, J. & John Micklewright, 2013. "GINI DP 65: Socioeconomic gradients in children’s cognitive skills: are cross-country comparisons robust to who reports family background?," GINI Discussion Papers 65, AIAS, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies.
  • Handle: RePEc:aia:ginidp:65
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www1.feb.uva.nl/aias/65-4-6-4.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gabriela Schütz & Heinrich W. Ursprung & Ludger Wößmann, 2008. "Education Policy and Equality of Opportunity," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(2), pages 279-308, May.
    2. Erik Hanushek & Stephen Machin & Ludger Woessmann (ed.), 2011. "Handbook of the Economics of Education," Handbook of the Economics of Education, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 4, number 4, June.
    3. John Jerrim, 2012. "The Socio‐Economic Gradient in Teenagers' Reading Skills: How Does England Compare with Other Countries?," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 33(2), pages 159-184, June.
    4. Brunello, Giorgio & Weber, Guglielmo & Weiss, Christoph T., 2012. "Books Are Forever: Early Life Conditions, Education and Lifetime Income," IZA Discussion Papers 6386, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Zoltan Hermann & Daniel Horn, 2011. "How inequality of opportunity and mean student performance are related? - A quantile regression approach using PISA data," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 1124, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    6. Robert Haveman & Barbara Wolfe, 1995. "The Determinants of Children's Attainments: A Review of Methods and Findings," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 33(4), pages 1829-1878, December.
    7. Cameron,A. Colin & Trivedi,Pravin K., 2005. "Microeconometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521848053, June.
    8. John Hendrickx, 2002. "ISCO: Stata module to recode 4 digit ISCO-68 occupational codes," Statistical Software Components S425801, Boston College Department of Economics.
    9. Hermann, Z. & Horn, D., 2011. "How are inequality of opportunity and mean student performance related? A quantile regression approach using PISA data," Regional and Sectoral Economic Studies, Euro-American Association of Economic Development, vol. 11(3).
    10. Erik Hanushek & Stephen Machin & Ludger Woessmann (ed.), 2011. "Handbook of the Economics of Education," Handbook of the Economics of Education, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 3, number 3, June.
    11. Peter Dolton & Rita Asplund & Erling Barth (ed.), 2009. "Education and Inequality Across Europe," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 12921, March.
    12. John Jerrim, 2012. "The socio-economic gradient in teenagers' literacy skills: how does England compare to other countries?," DoQSS Working Papers 12-04, Quantitative Social Science - UCL Social Research Institute, University College London.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. John Jerrim & John Micklewright, 2012. "Socioeconomic gradients in children's cognitive skills: Are cross-country comparisons robust to who reports family background?," DoQSS Working Papers 12-06, Quantitative Social Science - UCL Social Research Institute, University College London.
    2. John Jerrim & Álvaro Choi, 2013. "The mathematics skills of school children: how does England compare to the high performing east Asian jurisdictions?," Working Papers 2013/12, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    3. John Jerrim & Álvaro Choi, 2013. "The mathematics skills of school children: how does England compare to the high performing east Asian jurisdictions?," Working Papers 2013/12, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    4. John Jerrim & Alvaro Choi, 2013. "The mathematics skills of school children: How does England compare to the high performing East Asian jurisdictions?," DoQSS Working Papers 13-03, Quantitative Social Science - UCL Social Research Institute, University College London.
    5. Zlata Bruckauf & UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, 2016. "Falling Behind: Socio-demographic profiles of educationally disadvantaged youth. Evidence from PISA 2000-2012," Papers inwopa837, Innocenti Working Papers.
    6. Catherine Haeck & Pierre Lefebvre, 2020. "The Evolution of Cognitive Skills Inequalities by Socioeconomic Status across Canada," Working Papers 20-04, Research Group on Human Capital, University of Quebec in Montreal's School of Management.
    7. Tommaso Agasisti & Francesco Avvisati & Francesca Borgonovi & Sergio Longobardi, 2021. "What School Factors are Associated with the Success of Socio-Economically Disadvantaged Students? An Empirical Investigation Using PISA Data," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 157(2), pages 749-781, September.
    8. Marchionni, Mariana & Vazquez, Emmanuel & Pinto, Florencia, 2012. "Desigualdad educativa en la Argentina. Análisis en base a los datos PISA 2009 [Education Inequality in Argentina. An analysis based on PISA 2009 data]," MPRA Paper 56420, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. José Manuel Cordero & Daniel Santín & Rosa Simancas, 2017. "Assessing European primary school performance through a conditional nonparametric model," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 68(4), pages 364-376, April.
    10. repec:zbw:rwirep:0292 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. José Manuel Cordero Ferrera & Manuel Muñiz Pérez & Rosa Simancas Rodríguez, 2015. "The influence of socioeconomic factors on cognitive and non-cognitive educational outcomes," Investigaciones de Economía de la Educación volume 10, in: Marta Rahona López & Jennifer Graves (ed.), Investigaciones de Economía de la Educación 10, edition 1, volume 10, chapter 21, pages 413-438, Asociación de Economía de la Educación.
    12. Borgna, Camilla & Contini, Dalit, 2013. "Migrant Achievement Penalties in Western Europe. What Role for Educational Systems?," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis. Working Papers 201342, University of Turin.
    13. Bernhard C. Dannemann, 2020. "Peer Effects in Secondary Education: Evidence from the 2015 Trends in Mathematics and Science Study Based on Homophily," Working Papers V-428-20, University of Oldenburg, Department of Economics, revised Feb 2020.
    14. Nathalie Picard & François-Charles Wolff, 2014. "Les inégalités intrafamiliales d'éducation en France," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 65(6), pages 813-840.
    15. De Paola, Maria & Brunello, Giorgio, 2016. "Education as a Tool for the Economic Integration of Migrants," IZA Discussion Papers 9836, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Contini, Dalit & Cugnata, Federica, 2020. "Does Early Tracking Affect Learning Inequalities? Revisiting Difference-in-difference Modeling Strategies with International Assessments," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis. Working Papers 202018, University of Turin.
    17. Piopiunik, Marc, 2014. "The effects of early tracking on student performance: Evidence from a school reform in Bavaria," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 12-33.
    18. C. Dannemann & Erkan Goeren, 2018. "The Educational Burden of ADHD: Evidence From Student Achievement Test Scores," Working Papers V-408-18, University of Oldenburg, Department of Economics, revised Apr 2018.
    19. Chris Ryan, 2017. "Social Disadvantage and Education," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 50(3), pages 338-347, July.
    20. Gradstein, Mark & Brückner, Markus, 2013. "Income and schooling," CEPR Discussion Papers 9365, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    21. Contini, Dalit & Cugnata, Federica, 2016. "Learning inequalities between primary and secondary school. Difference-in-difference with international assessments," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis. Working Papers 201607, University of Turin.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aia:ginidp:65. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiemer Salverda The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Wiemer Salverda to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aiuvanl.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.