Investing in Education (News and Research 305)

Is More Always Better? The Role of Increased Parental Involvement in Children’s Learning | The closure of schools during the Covid-19 pandemic offered a window of both challenges and opportunities for parents to take on pedagogical roles in supporting their children’s learning process. There are several ways in which parents can support their children’s learning. One of the main ways is through home-based parental involvement where parent and children interact. This home-based parental support has become increasingly important because of the shift to online learning due to the pandemic. Parents are expected to help teachers monitor and navigate children’s educational activities through homeschooling resources. Given the huge responsibility the pandemic has placed on the shoulders of parents, it is worth asking three questions to disentangle the effects of parental involvement on children’s learning outcomes: 1. Does providing information to parents on ways to support their children’s learning increase parental involvement? 2. Does providing information to parents on ways to support their children’s learning increase children’s learning outcomes? 3. When does information provision, such as providing leaflets and community group sessions on how to support their children’s learning, improve children’s educational outcomes, and when does it not?  Two RISE studies from Indonesia and Mexico, entitled “Does Higher Parental Involvement Lead to Learning Gains? Experimental Evidence from Indonesia” and “Promoting Parental Involvement in Schools: Evidence from Two Randomized Experiments”, address these three questions through randomized experiments…

ROI of education: how economists estimate it + US economic update – EP152 Do you get a return on investment if you get a university or college degree? Does the taxpayer get an ROI for any subsidies provided? Economics Explored host Gene Tunny discusses how economists crunch the numbers on the ROI of education with his colleague Arturo Espinoza. Gene also gives an update on the US economy, covering the strong jobs growth figure for July 2022 among other indicators. You can listen to the episode via the embedded player below or via podcasting apps including Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher.

Labor Market Returns to Vocational Secondary Education Study of labor market returns to vocational versus general secondary education using a regression discontinuity design created by the centralized admissions process in Finland. Admission to the vocational track increases initial annual income, and this benefit persists at least through the mid-thirties, and present discount value calculations suggest that it is unlikely that life cycle returns will turn negative through retirement. Moreover, admission to the vocational track does not increase the likelihood of working in jobs at risk of replacement by automation or offshoring. Consistent with comparative advantage, observe larger returns for people who express a preference for vocational education.

Returns to education in China: Evidence from the great higher education expansion China experienced a near 5-fold increase in annual Higher Education (HE) enrolment in the decade starting in 1999. The Great HE Expansion exacerbated a large pre-existing urban-rural gap in educational attainment underpinned by the hukou (household registration) system. Instrument the years of schooling with the interaction between urban hukou status during childhood and the timing of the expansion – in essence a difference-in-differences estimator using rural students to control for common time trends. The Great HE raised earnings by 17% for men and 12% for women respectively, allowing for county fixed effects.

Returns to Education in the Public and Private Sectors: Europe and Central Asia (IZA DP No. 15516) Returns to Education in the Public and Private Sectors: Europe and Central Asia The returns to schooling are estimated for 28 European and Central Asian countries using the Mincerian function. Our results show that while the public sector pays on average more than the private sector, the effect of education on earnings is stronger in the private sector. However, the returns to tertiary education are higher in the private sector.