IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhb/hastel/2026_004.html

Parental and School Responses to Student Performance: Evidence from School Entry Rules

Author

Listed:
  • Fredriksson, Peter

    (Uppsala University and Uppsala Center for Labor Studies (UCLS))

  • Öckert, Björn

    (Uppsala University and Uppsala Center for Labor Studies (UCLS))

  • Tilley, Lucas

    (Center for Education and Leadership Excellence)

Abstract

We examine whether parental and school investments reinforce or compensate for student performance. Our analysis exploits school-starting-age rules in 34 countries, capturing achievement variation that arises because younger children typically underperform their older peers. Parents respond to lower performance by providing additional homework help and skills practice, while schools allocate weaker students to smaller classes and offer more remedial tu- toring. Notably, parents provide more support to low-performing children in nearly all countries studied. Compensatory investments increase over grade levels, suggesting parents and schools respond as more information about achievement is revealed. Moreover, our evidence suggests that parental and school investments are substitutes.

Suggested Citation

  • Fredriksson, Peter & Öckert, Björn & Tilley, Lucas, 2026. "Parental and School Responses to Student Performance: Evidence from School Entry Rules," Working Papers 26/4, Stockholm School of Economics, Center for Educational Leadership and Excellence.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhb:hastel:2026_004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://swoba.hhs.se/hastel/paper/hastel2026_004.1.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Schwandt, Hannes & Wuppermann, Amelie, 2016. "The youngest get the pill: ADHD misdiagnosis in Germany, its regional correlates and international comparison," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 72-86.
    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. Persson, Petra & Qiu, Xinyao & Rossin-Slater, Maya, 2021. "Family Spillover Effects of Marginal Diagnoses: The Case of ADHD," IZA Discussion Papers 14020, IZA Network @ LISER.
    2. Fumarco, Luca & Hartmann, Sven A. & Principe, Francesco, 2026. "Influence of within-class age differences on adolescents’ eating behaviors," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    3. Thide, Konrad Juel & Bøgh, Felix Johannes Pettersson & Larsen, Birthe, 2024. "Gender and socioeconomic dimensions of relative age effects on ADHD prescriptions: Evidence from Denmark," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 244(C).
    4. Gabriele Mari, 2024. "Less for more? Cuts to child benefits, family adjustments, and long-run child outcomes in larger families," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 37(2), pages 1-27, June.
    5. Maya Rossin-Slater & Adrienne Sabety & Aileen Wu, 2026. "The Impact of Preschool Entry Age on Children’s Behavioral and Developmental Health in Medicaid," NBER Working Papers 34677, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Fumarco, Luca & Baert, Stijn, 2019. "Relative age effect on European adolescents’ social network," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 318-337.
    7. Marie Connolly & Catherine Haeck, 2018. "Le lien entre la taille des classes et les compétences cognitives et non cognitives," CIRANO Project Reports 2018rp-18, CIRANO.
    8. Mari, Gabriele, 2023. "Less for more? Cuts to child benefits, family adjustments, and long-run child outcomes in larger families," SocArXiv e3n82, Center for Open Science.
    9. Fredriksson, Peter & Öckert, Björn & Tilley, Lucas, 2024. "Parental and School Responses to Student Performance: Evidence from School Entry Rules," IZA Discussion Papers 16901, IZA Network @ LISER.
    10. Berniell, Inés & Estrada, Ricardo, 2020. "Poor little children: The socioeconomic gap in parental responses to school disadvantage," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    11. Nicodemo, Catia & Nicoletti, Cheti & Vidiella-Martin, Joaquim, 2024. "Starting School and ADHD: When Is It Time to Fly the Nest?," IZA Discussion Papers 17091, IZA Network @ LISER.
    12. Fumarco, L. & Baert, S. & Sarracino, F., 2020. "Younger, dissatisfied, and unhealthy – Relative age in adolescence," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 37(C).
    13. Kelly Bedard & Allison Witman, 2020. "Family structure and the gender gap in ADHD," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 18(4), pages 1101-1129, December.
    14. Jill Furzer & Elizabeth Dhuey & Audrey Laporte, 2022. "ADHD misdiagnosis: Causes and mitigators," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(9), pages 1926-1953, September.
    15. Fumarco, Luca & Baert, Stijn, 2018. "Younger and Dissatisfied? Relative Age and Life-satisfaction in Adolescence," GLO Discussion Paper Series 278, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    16. Simone Balestra & Beatrix Eugster & Helge Liebert, 2017. "The Effect of School Starting Age on Special Needs Incidence and Child Development into Adolescence," CESifo Working Paper Series 6837, CESifo.
    17. Michael Bahrs & Mathias Schumann, 2020. "Unlucky to be young? The long-term effects of school starting age on smoking behavior and health," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 33(2), pages 555-600, April.
    18. Barabasch, Anton & Cygan-Rehm, Kamila & Leibing, Andreas, 2026. "Timing of school entry and personality traits in adulthood," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 183(C).
    19. Bahrs, Michael & Schumann, Mathias, 2016. "Unlucky to Be Young? The Long-Term Effects of School Starting Age on Smoking Behaviour and Health," hche Research Papers 13, University of Hamburg, Hamburg Center for Health Economics (hche).
    20. Catherine Haeck & Pierre Lefebvre & Geneviève Lefebvre & Philip Merrigan, 2024. "Mistaking immature classroom behaviour with ADHD," CIRANO Papers 2024pj-03, CIRANO.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:hhb:hastel:2026_004. 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: Helena Lundin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/hhstose.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.