Household Characteristics of Higher Education Participants

Martin Francis Ryan (), Siobhan McCarthy and Carol Newman
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Siobhan McCarthy: Faculty of Business, Dublin Institute of Technology, Aungier Street, Dublin 2
Carol Newman: Department of Economics, University of Dublin, Trinity College, Dublin 2

No 200702, Working Papers from Geary Institute, University College Dublin

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to analyse the characteristics of Irish households that have a member participating in higher education, using surveys of Irish households collected in 1994-95 and 1999-2000. The results do not show a significant effect of income; this is notable, especially alongside the strong result that longer-term factors such as household wealth and cultural capital have a significant effect. This lends support to the argument proposed by Heckman (2000) that family income is only important over the entire educational investment cycle of a child. However, the importance of grant eligibility is a notable result, which suggests that short-term financial constraints cannot be dismissed. A combination of suitably beneficial short-term and long-term factors may be important for encouraging participation in higher education.

Keywords: higher education; human capital; credit constraints (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D33 H43 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007-07-03
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