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Author: Casserly, Catherine Marie
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Casserly, Catherine Marie |
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Poverty and Education in the United States, 1969-1988: An Analysis of Women's Returns to Human Capital Investment Ph.D. Dissertation, Stanford University, 1996. DAI-A 57/08, p. 3438, Feb 1997 Cohort(s): Mature Women, Young Women Publisher: UMI - University Microfilms, Bell and Howell Information and Learning Keyword(s): Black Studies; Economics of Minorities; Educational Attainment; Human Capital; Poverty; Racial Differences In the United States, public policies designed to reduce poverty are overwhelmingly influenced by human capital theory, since education is viewed as the powerful mechanism by which productivity will increase, incomes will be raised, and economic opportunity will be provided. Although African-American women followed the prescription set forth by human capital theory and increased their educational attainment by over 2 years from the late 1960s to the late 1980s, their incidence of poverty remained fairly stable. This study examines why educational investments by that population most susceptible to being poor, African-American females, have not reduced poverty as expected. Using National Longitudinal Surveys of Labor Market Experience data, structural equation models of poverty are estimated and compared for 1969 and 1988 cohorts of women. The results are used to assess whether the poverty gaps between times and races are due to differences in resources, such as differing levels of education, or due to differing returns to characteristics. Finally, a time series analysis is conducted with aggregate-level data. The ability of human capital investment to alleviate poverty for African-American women differs depending on whether one estimates private or social returns. In the individual-level analysis, education is a strong negative determinant of poverty status and is found to be equally sensitive for each time period studied. Education is also found to be a critical mediating variable between family of origin, teen birth, and poverty, suggesting its important indirect effect on women's later economic prosperity. Results from the time series analysis, however, indicate that increased schooling did not exert any negative pressure on the aggregate poverty rate. Further, results suggest that African-American women's returns to educational investment are consistently lower than white women's, irrespective of overall level of education and resources. In sum, the results clearly demonstrate that education is only one of many determinants of poverty and, consequently, reducing poverty requires a more comprehensive strategy than one built around human capital theory alone. Although education is a critical determinant of poverty, educational investment should be only one of a host of related and integrated strategies used to reduce the level of economic hardship in the United States. |
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Bibliography Citation
Casserly, Catherine Marie. Poverty and Education in the United States, 1969-1988: An Analysis of Women's Returns to Human Capital Investment. Ph.D. Dissertation, Stanford University, 1996. DAI-A 57/08, p. 3438, Feb 1997. |