Showing papers by "Ross Finnie published in 2012"
TL;DR: This article presented the results of an empirical analysis based on a very rich Canadian dataset, the Youth in Transition Survey, which follows youth from age 15 through to age 25 and includes remarkably detailed information on family and other background factors as well as schooling experiences, which provides evidence that points to the importance of cultural influences on PSE choices.
43 citations
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TL;DR: This paper found that socio-economic differences in university access are more pronounced in England and Canada than Australia and the United States, and that cross-national variation in the socioeconomic gap remains even once they take account of differences in academic achievement.
Abstract: In this paper we consider whether certain countries are particularly adept (or particularly poor) at getting children from disadvantaged homes to study for a bachelor’s degree. A series of university access models are estimated for four English speaking countries (England, Canada, Australia and the United States) which include controls for comparable measures of academic achievement at age 15. We not only consider access to any university but also admission to a ‘selective’ institution. Our results suggest that socio-economic differences in university access are more pronounced in England and Canada than Australia and the United States, and that cross-national variation in the socioeconomic gap remains even once we take account of differences in academic achievement. We discuss the implications of our findings for the creation of more socially mobile societies.
14 citations
01 Jan 2012
10 citations
TL;DR: This research exploits the uniquely rich Youth in Transition Survey to investigate access to post-secondary education among the children of Canadian immigrants, including both those who came to this country as immigrants themselves by age 15 and those who were born in Canada to immigrant parents.
Abstract: This research exploits the uniquely rich Youth in Transition Survey to investigate access to post-secondary education (PSE) among the children of Canadian immigrants, including both (i) those who came to this country as immigrants themselves by age 15, and (ii) those who were born in Canada to immigrant parents. Both groups are, overall, considerably more likely to attend PSE, university in particular, than non-immigrant youth, but the patterns vary a great deal by source country, with the Chinese, African and certain other Asian groups having especially high rates. The immigrant differences are partly explained by certain demographic characteristics of their families (e.g., province and area size of residence and family structure), by the relatively high education levels of their parents, and other observable factors such as parental aspirations regarding their children’s education. However, some significant differences remain even after controlling for these and other factors.
6 citations
5 citations
01 Jul 2012
TL;DR: The authors found that the high overall immigrant university participation rates are largely driven by those who attend university in spite of some apparent disadvantages (e.g., low parental education), and that among the population of youth who had arrived in Canada by the age of 15, year of immigration has no effect on PSE participation.
Abstract: The children of Canadian immigrants from some source regions, Asia, Africa and China in particular, attend university at very high rates. Most other immigrant groups participate at lower rates, but still compare favourably with non-immigrant Canadians. In this paper the Youth in Transition Survey is used to analyse the role of various background factors on these outcomes, including parental education, family income, parental expectations, high school grades, and PISA test scores. To some degree, the children of immigrants go to university because they have higher levels of the background attributes associated with university attendance, parental education in particular. But by allowing these effects to vary by immigrant group, this research finds that the high overall immigrant university participation rates are largely driven by those who attend university in spite of some apparent disadvantages (e.g., low parental education). Another finding is that among our population of youth who had arrived in Canada by the age of 15, year of immigration has no effect on PSE participation. JEL codes: I20, I23, J15, J18 Finnie and Mueller are grateful for support from Statistics Canada, where both were Visiting Fellows. Thanks also to Ling Ling Ang, Winnie Chan, Feng Hou and Theresa Qiu for useful discussions on this topic. Li Xue, Chris Worswick and other participants at the 2010 Statistics Canada Socio-Economic Conference and the 2010 meetings of the Canadian Economics Association provided useful feedback. We also thank participants at the 2010 International Symposium on Contemporary Labor Economics at Xiamen University, China, for stimulating and insightful discussion. Special thanks to Garnett Picot, Grant Schellenberg (??) and Pamela White for their thoughtful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.
4 citations
01 Feb 2012
TL;DR: In this article, the authors exploited the longitudinal Youth in Transition Survey, Cohort A (YITSA) to address access, and "barriers" to post-secondary education (PSE).
Abstract: This paper exploits the longitudinal Youth in Transition Survey, Cohort A (YITSA) to address access, and “barriers”, to post-secondary education (PSE). This paper first looks at how access is related to family background characteristics including both family income and parental education. Attention is then turned towards the 25 percent of youths who do not access PSE by age 21, and the barriers they face. Of this group, 23.3 percent have no (stated) aspirations for PSE. Among those who do aspire for PSE, over one-half report that they face no barriers to attending PSE, while 22 percent claim that finances are at least one barrier to their entering PSE. Stated differently, 5.5 percent of all youths of our sample wish to go to PSE, have not accessed PSE, and claim “finances” represent at least one barrier to accessing PSE. Regression analysis is used to relate students’ background characteristics to their barriers.
2 citations