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Author: Kearney, Melissa S.
Resulting in 2 citations.
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Kearney, Melissa S. Levine, Phillip B. |
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Income Inequality, Social Mobility, and the Decision to Drop Out of High School NBER Working Paper No. 20195, National Bureau of Economic Research, June 2014. Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w20195 Cohort(s): NLSY79, NLSY97 Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Keyword(s): Dropouts; Educational Attainment; Educational Longitudinal Study (ELS:2002); High School and Beyond (HSB); High School Diploma; Income; Income Distribution; Mobility, Social; National Education Longitudinal Survey (NELS); Socioeconomic Status (SES) This paper considers the role that high levels of income inequality and low rates of social mobility play in driving the educational attainment of youth in low-income households in the United States. Using high school degree status from five individual-level surveys, our analysis reveals that low-socioeconomic status (SES) students, and particularly boys, who grow up in locations with greater levels of lower-tail income inequality and lower levels of social mobility are relatively more likely to drop out of high school, conditional on other individual characteristics and contextual factors. The data indicate that this relationship does not reflect alternative characteristics of the place, such as poverty concentration, residential segregation, or public school financing. We propose that the results are consistent with a class of explanations that emphasize a role for perceptions of one’s own identity, position in society, or chances of success. In the end, our empirical results indicate that high levels of lower-tail income inequality and low levels of social mobility hinder educational advancement for disadvantaged youth. |
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Bibliography Citation
Kearney, Melissa S. and Phillip B. Levine. "Income Inequality, Social Mobility, and the Decision to Drop Out of High School." NBER Working Paper No. 20195, National Bureau of Economic Research, June 2014. |
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Kearney, Melissa S. Levine, Phillip B. |
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Income Inequality, Social Mobility, and the Decision to Drop Out of High School Brookings Papers on Economic Activity (Spring 2016): 333-380. Also: Income Inequality, Social Mobility, and the Decision to Drop Out of High School Cohort(s): NLSY79, NLSY97 Publisher: Brookings Institution Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Educational Attainment; High School and Beyond (HSB); High School Diploma; High School Dropouts; Income Distribution; Mobility, Social; National Education Longitudinal Survey (NELS); Socioeconomic Background It is widely documented that places with higher level of income inequality have lower rates of social mobility. But it is an open question whether and how higher levels of inequality actually lead to lower rates of mobility. We propose that one channel through which higher rates of income inequality might lead to lower rates of upward mobility is lower rates of human capital investment among low-income individuals. Specifically, we posit that greater levels of income inequality could lead low-income youth to perceive a lower rate of return on investment in their own human capital. Such an effect would offset any potential "aspirational" effect coming from higher educational wage premiums. The data are consistent with this prediction: Individuals from low socioeconomic backgrounds are more likely to drop out of school if they live in a place with a great gap between the bottom and middle of the income distribution. This finding is robust in relation to a number of specification checks and tests for confounding factors. |
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Bibliography Citation
Kearney, Melissa S. and Phillip B. Levine. "Income Inequality, Social Mobility, and the Decision to Drop Out of High School." Brookings Papers on Economic Activity (Spring 2016): 333-380.
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