Participation in Post-secondary Education in Canada: Has the Role of Parental Income and Education Changed over the 1990s?

Marie Drolet

Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series from Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch

Abstract:

This paper examines the extent to which the relationship between participation in post-secondary education and family background, namely parental income and parental education changed between 1993 and 2001. The results support a long-standing pattern that university participation rates are highest among youths from high-income families and of highly educated parents. There is no evidence to suggest that this relationship between university participation and family background changed over the 1993-2001 period. Although university participation rates generally rise as family incomes increase, there is little difference in participation rates among youths from modest-income (below $75,000) and low-income families. Overall, the correlation between university participation and family income changed very little between 1993 and 2001. Next, when taking account of both parental education and parental income, university participation rates are more strongly associated with parents' level of education than with their income. The paper discusses significant data gaps and concludes that these data gaps do not have important implications on conclusions about the relationship between post-secondary education and family background throughout the 1993-2001 period.

Keywords: Education; training and learning; Educational attainment; Equity and inclusion; Household; family and personal income; Income; pensions; spending and wealth; Society and community; Students (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005-02-16
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-hrm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/catalogue/11F0019M2005243 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:stc:stcp3e:2005243e

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series from Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Mark Brown ().