Monetary and time investments in children's education: how do they differ in workless households?

Silvan Has (), Jake Anders and Nikki Shure
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Silvan Has: Department of Social Science, UCL Institute of Education, University College London

No 20-10, CEPEO Working Paper Series from UCL Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities

Abstract: Around 9% of children in the European Union live in households in which no parent is working. Children living in these workless households are of increasing interest to researchers, policy makers, and the wider public. Workless households not only have lower income on average but are also widely considered to be at risk of social exclusion. In this paper, we study the relationship between parents' employment status and their time and monetary investments in their child's education using data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). We use matching methods and regression analysis to compare educational investments made in children from a workless background to children with at least one working parent, but otherwise very similar background characteristics. Our analyses indicate that parents' worklessness is associated with lower monetary investments in their children's education. However, we do not find a difference in monetary investments in the form of commercial tutoring. In terms of time investments, we find that workless parents - especially workless single parents - spend more time helping their child doing homework. These findings could help guide future social policy aimed at equalising opportunities for children living in workless households. Conditional on a deeper understanding of the implications of worklessness on country level, measures such as educational vouchers or stipend programmes specifically aimed at socially disadvantaged children could be introduced.

Keywords: PISA; educational inequality; worklessness; monetary investments; time investments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I20 I21 I24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 54 pages
Date: 2020-04, Revised 2020-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem and nep-edu
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https://repec-cepeo.ucl.ac.uk/cepeow/cepeowp20-10.pdf First version, 2020 (application/pdf)

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