Can we measure desired schooling?
315 M. Binder Economics of Education Review 18 1999 311–325
Table 1 Summary statistics for respondents and non-respondents standard deviation in parentheses
Non- Included in determinants
Respondents respondents regressions?
All Not visited Visited
Yes No
Sample size 315
221 94
26 285
56 Children’s desired schooling
11.5 11.9
10.7 12.6
11.6 11.9
3.7 3.6
3.7 4.2
3.6 4.2
Parent’s desired schooling 12.1
12.6 11.1
NA 12.0
13.1 3.6
3.5 3.7
3.7 3.4
Household characteristics Household weekly spending
a
333 379
226 NA
325 590
401 465
117 386
590 Nuclear family
0.69 0.70
0.68 0.73
0.71 0.61
Both parents present 0.84
0.84 0.83
0.81 0.86
0.71 Number of siblings
5.2 5.0
5.8 5.1
5.2 5.2
2.6 2.6
2.7 2.6
2.6 2.7
Own home 0.75
0.71 0.82
NA 0.75
0.69 Own car
0.31 0.37
0.15 NA
0.31 0.34
Parent characteristics Parents’ age
39.4 39.0
40.4 NA
39.3 41.4
7.1 6.6
7.9 7.0
8.6 Parents’ schooling
5.1 5.7
3.8 NA
5.1 5.5
3.7 3.9
2.6 3.6
4.6 Both parents native
0.13 0.17
0.03 NA
0.13 Father’s salary
a
382 421
301 NA
385 362
612 727
234 627
352 Mother’s salary
a
162 198
111 NA
161 166
178 218
72 183
105 Parents willing to spend on school out of extra
0.91 0.92
0.89 NA
0.91 0.89
income Parents willing to borrow to finance schooling
0.81 0.81
0.82 NA
0.81 0.77
Child characteristics Age
11.4 11.3
11.8 11.7
11.5 11.4
1.5 1.5
1.6 1.8
1.5 1.5
Male 0.53
0.54 0.52
0.46 0.53
0.52 Native
0.67 0.73
0.52 0.69
0.67 0.67
All statistics between 0 and 1 indicate sample proportions for this characteristic.
a
In nuevos pesos, which exchanged at about three per US at the time of the survey in 1993.
low-income Guadalajara, Arandas and Tijuana samples are the same. But in years of desired schooling, the Tiju-
ana children break ranks with the low- and low–middle- income Guadalajara children. As indicated in Table 2,
the Tijuana children are very aspiring; desired schooling levels match or exceed those of middle-income Guadala-
jara children. A x
2
test rejects the null hypothesis that the Tijuana samples have the same desired schooling dis-
tribution as the other low-income samples.
4. Can we measure desired schooling?
According to the investment framework, students may attain less than their desired schooling due to liquidity
constraints. By asking how much schooling children and parents desire, I sought to capture what their schooling
investments would be, absent liquidity constraints. In this section I describe the questions used to solicit infor-
mation on desired schooling and explore the extent to which this information may be biased by over-reporting.
I find that reported desired schooling follows ex ante notions of desired schooling. In particular, it displays
considerable variation in the sample, and is positively associated with predicted eventual schooling attainment.
The children in my study were interviewed at school—sometimes even in the principal’s office—and
questionnaires to parents included a cover letter of sup- port from the school director. This arrangement alone
may have encouraged some parents and children to over-
316 M. Binder Economics of Education Review 18 1999 311–325
Fig. 2. Frequency distribution of Mexican urban households by income level: national and schools samples. Sources: Inegi 1992b
and author’s schools survey.
report schooling desires in an effort to provide what might have been perceived as the socially desirable
answer. In addition, survey designers are familiar with the tendency of survey participants to represent them-
selves in a positive light, whatever the institutional back- ing of the survey
9
. Students and parents responded to a series of questions
about their desired schooling levels. They were first asked outright the school level and grade they wanted to
achieve. They were later asked what they wanted to do upon finishing their studies. The vast majority all but
four who planned to work in the labor force were asked their occupational preference, and what they thought the
required schooling to get a job in this occupation would be. To mitigate against the tendency to over-report,
desired schooling used in the analyses to follow is the lower of the outright and occupation responses. The idea
is that the more specific occupational response introduces
9
Sudman and Bradburn 1982, for example, cite consider- able over-reporting of having a public library card, in a study
where responses were verified in library records.
a “reality check” on children’s and parents’ true desired schooling. Twenty-two per cent of the children and 17
of the parents were ascribed their occupation responses. These children and parents also reported lower house-
hold spending and parent schooling levels. The mean of the constructed desired schooling measure was lower and
the standard deviation higher than the outright desired schooling response
10
. Participants were also asked if they thought their
desired schooling levels were likely to be realized and what potential obstacles they expected to encounter.
Close to one-half of the children and about two-thirds of parents expected financial difficulties in achieving
desired schooling levels.
The data in Table 1 show that there is considerable variation in reports of desired schooling. For the sample
as a whole, mean desired schooling of children is 11.5
10
The means and standard deviations for children’s con- structed and outright reports of desired schooling were 11.63.7
and 12.53.4 years, respectively. For parents the figures were 12.13.6 and 12.83.4, respectively.
317 M. Binder Economics of Education Review 18 1999 311–325
Table 2 Summary statistics by school standard deviations in parentheses
City Guadalajara
Arandas Tijuana
School ID 1
2 3
4 6
7 8
9 Income level
Low Low
Low Low–mid Middle
High Low
Low Low
Special features Night
Private school
school Studentsclass
a
43.2 49.3
45.3 39.1
35.0 24.8
37.6 40.5
34.3 Students surveyed
b
37 40
38 36
37 31
43 41
38 Children’s characteristics
Age 11.5
11.6 13.9
11.1 10.7
11.1 11.5
10.8 10.8
1.1 1.3
2.1 1.0
1.0 0.8
1.2 1.1
1.0 Per cent native
91.7 74.4
73.7 72.2
91.9 45.2
83.7 31.7
34.2 Desired schooling children
9.8 9.7
8.6 11.4
13.6 15.3
10.0 13.8
13.0 3.4
3.3 3.0
3.4 2.7
1.8 3.0
3.1 3.2
Per cent working
c
35.1 35.0
69.4 25.0
19.4 12.9
44.2 26.8
23.7 Parent and household characteristics
Weekly household spending 204
188 219
339 350
1488 204
275 286
62 86
106 289
219 1187
93 110
137 Mothers’ schooling
3.9 2.9
2.7 5.6
8.0 12.2
3.2 6.0
5.2 3.1
1.7 2.3
4.0 3.8
2.9 2.7
2.9 3.3
Desired schooling parents 10.3
10.2 10.7
12.2 14.5
16 10.8
14.0 12.7
3.3 3.3
3.6 3.6
2.7 3.7
2.7 3.2
Households with benefits
d
18.9 25.0
27.7 24.2
39.4 42.1
14.6 45.0
39.5 Census-tract population characteristics proportions
Nine years or more schooling 0.11
0.11 0.17
0.54 0.49
0.74 0.23
0.32 0.32
Earning 2 minimum 0.70
0.70 0.69
0.45 0.55
0.35 0.69
0.53 0.53
salaries Children 6–14 in school
0.85 0.85
0.87 0.90
0.93 0.96
0.86 0.77
0.78
a
This is an average for all classes in the school.
b
In the private school, children are a sample from two classes. In all other schools, all children in one fifth-grade class were inter- viewed.
c
Or actively seeking work.
d
Benefits received through employment of either or both parents.
years, with a standard deviation of 3.7 years. For parents, the mean and standard deviation are 12.1 years and 3.6
years, respectively. In Table 2, reports of desired school- ing vary considerably among the sampled schools, with
means of 15 and 16 years for children and parents, respectively, in the private school, compared with 10 and
11 years in Arandas. This is particularly reassuring given that parents chose a response from a list of possible
attainments that culminated at the university level
11
. From the framework set out in Section 2, schooling
attainment should be positively associated with desired schooling and negatively associated with measures of
liquidity constraints. Analysis of the available data sug- gests that this is the case. Since the sample children are
11
Reported desired schooling levels were translated into years as follows: primary school 5 6 years; middle school 5
9 years; high school 5 12 years; university 5 16 years.
still in school, their eventual schooling attainment is not known. However, the survey also reported the age, sex
and schooling attainment for siblings, many of whom have completed their schooling
12
. A Tobit analysis can use information from both the completed schooling of
older siblings and the right-censored schooling of sample children and siblings still in school to assess the determi-
nants of eventual schooling attainment. Table 3 presents the results of a Tobit that models schooling attainment
as a function of desired schooling, income and wealth measures and family background traits. Estimates of the
effect of desired schooling are likely to be noisy, since the model implicitly ascribes the desired schooling of
parents for the sample child to all their other children,
12
Ninety-six per cent of the surveyed children have siblings and 41 of all siblings had completed their schooling at the
time of the survey.
318 M. Binder Economics of Education Review 18 1999 311–325
Table 3 Models of expected schooling using current attainment of all siblings in a Tobit model
a
standard errors in parentheses Dependent variable
Current attained schooling for all siblings Tobit Desired schooling of:
Children Parents
Desired schooling of parent or child 0.040
0.140 0.028
0.028 Log of household spending
0.536 0.317
0.181 0.181
No response for household spending 0.737
1.058 0.328
0.345 Parent schooling
0.121 0.097
0.038 0.038
Home-owners without legal title 2
0.731 2
0.586 0.234
0.225 Siblings
2 0.342
2 0.340
0.042 0.042
Nuclear 0.941
0.821 0.194
0.193 Log likelihood
2 1441
2 1399
N 1531
1509 Average gap standard deviation
4.24.3 4.94.0
a
Models also include dummy variables for renters and those living in rent-free arrangements with relatives or others, so that coefficients for home-owners without legal title are relative to home-owners with legal title. Models also control for age, age-squared
and gender. Significant at the 5 level.
Significant at the 10 level. Significant at the 20 level.
and, worse, the sample child’s desired schooling for him- or her self to his or her siblings. Nevertheless, parents’
desired schooling is a significant and positive predictor of schooling attainment
13
; children’s desired schooling is a positive but weak predictor. Likely measures of bind-
ing liquidity constraints are negatively associated with schooling attainment. Spending a proxy for permanent
income enters the model positively and significantly at the 5 and 10 confidence levels for children and par-
ents, respectively. Dummy variables for homeowners without legal title–who would presumably be unable to
use their property as collateral for loans—have a statisti-
13
The relationship between aspirations and attainment has been studied widely in the sociological literature. In US data,
schooling “aspirations” are found to be statistically significant predictors of eventual educational attainment Portes Wilson,
1976; Thomas, 1980; Sewell, Hauser Wolf, 1980. Jamison and Lockheed 1987, in a rare study that considers the effect
of desired schooling and attitudes on schooling in a developing country, find that parents’ desired schooling has a significant
effect on their children’s school enrollment in Nepal.
cally negative effect at standard confidence levels
14
. In sum, the model performs as expected, with desired
schooling of parents playing a significant positive role in determining eventual schooling attainment.