Household expenditures on private tutoring: emerging evidence from Malaysia

Private tutoring has been a burgeoning phenomenon in Malaysia for decades. This study examines the determinants of private tutoring expenditures in Malaysia using the 2004/2005 Household Expenditures Survey and applies hurdle regression models to the data. The results indicate that total household expenditures, household head’s level of education, household head’s gender, number of school-age children, and home ownership are important determinants of private tutoring expenditures in Malaysia. In comparison with Malay households, Chinese and Indian households have a higher likelihood of enrolling their children in private tutoring and spending on private tutoring. Indigenous households are less likely to spend for tutoring, but once their children are enrolled, they spend more than their Malay counterparts. Regional characteristics are also important determinants of private tutoring expenditures.     

GENDER COMPARISONS OF BABY BOOMERS AND FINANCIAL PREPARATION FOR RETIREMENT

This study compared men and women, focusing on three middle‐year age groups incorporating the baby boomers, in relation to the level of savings for retirement and the number of savings vehicles utilized. The research tapped into a study conducted by the National Center for Women and Retirement Research. Usable responses were received from 1,287 persons, 872 females and 415 males. Multiple linear regression identified certain personal characteristics, economic factors, psy‐chosocial factors, attitudes, and investing methods that appeared to be related to the level of savings for retirement. Certain personal characteristics, economics, and psychosocial factors were identified for the investments used. The identified factors were true for both genders, thus a profile of the person most likely to have a higher level of savings for retirement and likely to own investments emerged. The males best fit the savings and investing profiles. Neither gender was saving adequately for retirement or taking full advantage of portfolio diversification, with women the lowest. Recommendations are made, based on the findings, for educators, financial institutions and advisors, employers, and policy makers.     

Determinants of participation and expenditure patterns of private tuition received by primary school students in Penang,Malaysia: an exploratory study

In this exploratory study, the censored Tobit model is applied on primary data collected amongst parents of primary school students in Penang, Malaysia to examine the determinants of participation and expenditures on private tuition (PT). Results of the marginal effects indicate that socio-demographic characteristics – ethnicity, household income, level of schooling, and marital status – affect the probability of participation and its corresponding conditional (amongst those whose spending is positive) and unconditional (overall) expenditures. Specifically, compared to ethnic Malays, households of Chinese and Indian descent are more likely to send their children to PT, whilst spending more on conditional and unconditional expenditures, ceteris paribus. Low-income households have a lower likelihood to enrol their children in PT classes and spend less on conditional and unconditional expenditures than higher income households. Upper primary students are more likely to attend PT and spend more on conditional and unconditional expenditures than lower primary students. Single-parent households spend more on conditional and unconditional expenditures than households where both parents are together, all else equal. Based on these findings, several observations in terms of comparisons to other studies and policy implications are noted vis-à-vis the demand for PT amongst primary school students.     

公共教育中的不公平问题——义务教育阶段不同收入家庭的教育支出负担率分析

公共教育的个人支出状况及其家庭负担是公共教育发展指标体系中的重要内容。从义务教育阶段看,家庭在教育上的负担存在城市和县乡村间的地区差异,家庭收入／支出状况、就读教育阶段也会影响家庭负担情况。总体上,城市和县乡村家庭在义务教育阶段的负担均主要来自于校外支出部分,就读的教育阶段越高则教育负担越重。教育负担率从整体上呈现随收入增加而下降的趋势,其中城市地区在家庭教育支出负担量及负担率上均普遍高于县乡村地区。     

Education inputs,student performance and school finance reform in Michigan

This paper estimates the impact of the Michigan school finance reform, Proposal A, on education inputs and test scores. Using a difference-in-difference estimation strategy, I find that school districts in Michigan used the increase in educational spending generated through Proposal A to increase teacher salaries and reduce class size to a smaller extent. Then, using the foundation allowance created by Proposal A as an instrument, I estimate the causal effect of increased spending on 4th and 7th grade math scores for two test measures – a scaled score and a percent satisfactory measure – and find positive effects of increased spending on 4th grade test scores. A 60% increase in spending increases the percent satisfactory score by one standard deviation. The positive impact of expenditures on test performance seems largely due to higher teacher salaries.     

Private education expenditure in a ‘free education’ country: The case of Greece

This paper uses data from the 1988 Family Expenditure Survey to estimate and analyze the private expenditure on education in Greece. Such expenditure amounts to 111,624 million drs per year or 2.1% of total household expenditure. The aggregate expenditure of households is roughly half of what the state is spending on education. The dominant type of expenditure is for foreign languages and private crammer schools (frontisteria). There are sharp differences in private expenditure on education depending on the location of the household (spending in Athens is two-and-a-half times that of small towns and villages), the household's total expenditure, as well as the occupation and educational level of the head of the household. The findings are discussed in the context of the equity and efficiency of current education provision and financing policies.     

Editors’ introduction

In response to court rulings, states such as California and Washington have sought to promote greater equality in per pupil spending by shifting from local financing of public education to state financing. In this article, we investigate how constraints on local discretion resulting from this shift to state financing influence the level and growth of education spending. The analysis uses an expenditure function framework and a 21-year panel for the 50 states. To understand the extent to which expenditures are influenced by constraints on local discretion, we distinguish between court-ordered and other reforms of school finance systems. We show that the stringency of constraints on local discretion determines the effects of reforms on the level and growth of spending. In addition, we find that, for any type of reform, the characteristics of a state's population and of that state's schools determine the direction and magnitude of the postreform changes in spending.     

Assets and educational achievement: Theory and evidence

This special issue of Economics of Education Review explores the role of savings and asset holding in post-secondary educational achievement. Most college success research has focused on income rather than assets as a predictor, and most college financing policy has focused on tuition support and educational debt, rather than asset accumulation. Nevertheless, there is compelling evidence that household asset holdings, especially savings for education, may have a pronounced positive influence, independent from income, in post-secondary educational success. Moreover, the fundamental reality is that savings plays a role, even though sometimes small, in college financing for most households. For these empirical and practical reasons, it may be important to pay greater attention to savings and asset holding for education in the future than we have in the past. The articles in this volume contribute empirical evidence, theoretical understanding, and potential policy directions regarding saving, asset holding, and educational achievement.     

The Impact of a Holistic Conditional Cash Transfer Program in New York City on Parental Financial Investment,Student Time Use,and Educational Processes and Outcomes

ABSTRACT

This article examines the impacts of Opportunity New York City–Family Rewards, the first holistic conditional cash transfer (CCT) program evaluated in the United States, on parental financial investments in children, and high school students' academic time use, motivations and self-beliefs, and achievement outcomes. Family Rewards, launched by the Center for Economic Opportunity in the Mayor's Office of the City of New York in 2007 and codesigned and evaluated by MDRC, offered cash assistance to low-income families conditioned on family investments in three areas: children's education, family preventive health care, and parents' employment. Results that rely on a random assignment design find that Family Rewards resulted in statistically significant increases in parental spending and saving on education for all students, and increased savings for those students most academically prepared at baseline and for girls, as well as statistically significant increases in academic time use and achievement outcomes for these same academically prepared students. There were no impacts on student motivations and self-beliefs. Implications are discussed for conditional cash transfer programs as well as for interventions targeting high-risk children and families.     

Decentralising education in Indonesia

The paper aims to assess the impacts of a dramatic decentralisation reform in Indonesia on access to and quality of primary and secondary education. The research draws on qualitative and quantitative data from interviews, focus group discussions and household surveys in four selected districts. The main conclusions are threefold; the administration of educational services is without transparency and accountability, household expenditures on children's education are high and increasing, and huge social and geographical disparities exist. Policy recommendations include increased government spending to make primary education available to all and improved measures to control public policies and expenditure in this sector.     

Schooling of girls and boys in a West African country: the effects of parental education,income, and household structure

This study investigates gender differences in the determinants of several schooling indicators in Conakry, Guinea, using ordered and binary probit models incorporating household-level random effects. Such indicators include grade attainment, current enrollment, and withdrawal from school. The survey, which was conducted on 1725 households, contains detailed information on a wide range of socioeconomic factors such as education, labor force activity and earnings, assets and health. Results indicate that increases in household income lead to greater investments in the schooling of girls than in the schooling of boys. Meanwhile, improvements in the education of fathers raise the schooling of both sons and daughters, while the education of mothers only has a significant impact on the schooling of daughters. These estimates show differences in maternal and paternal preferences for schooling daughters relative to sons. Therefore, the importance of gender, parental education, and household income and composition affect the education of children. However, findings also show that education for girls is unnecessary since they only need to work at home. Moreover, policies that raise household incomes will increase gender equity in schooling, which will also depend on whether and how these policies change the opportunity costs of girls and boys and the labor market returns to female and male schooling.     

Using Social-Impact Borrowing to Expand Preschool-to-Third Grade Programs in Urban Schools

Budget constraints and difficulty raising taxes limit school districts from expanding education programming, even when research shows that additional expenditures would generate economic benefits that are greater than costs. Recently, coalitions of private investors, philanthropists, education practitioners, and government finance analysts have emerged to create opportunities to expand education services that promise high rates of social net benefits without raising taxes or reducing other expenditures. These collaborators have a strong interest in obtaining careful estimates of educational program effectiveness. We describe the use of social-impact borrowing to increase access to the Child-Parent Center preschool-to-third grade intervention for at-risk students in the Chicago Public School District. The partners include the city, school district, investors, nonprofit organizations, and a university. The key to the feasibility of social-impact borrowing is the ability to document that early intervention can reduce the need for later special-education services. With the help of private investors and nonprofit organizations, it is possible for public school districts to finance services with funds from private sources and use future cost savings to repay this debt. We discuss how social-impact borrowing is being used in Chicago and in Salt Lake County as the nation's first 2 instances of using pay-for-performance social-impact borrowing to support early education.     

Inequalities in adolescent learning: Does the timing and persistence of food insecurity at home matter?

We investigated inequalities in learning achievements at 12 years by household food insecurity trajectories at ages 5, 8 and 12 years in a longitudinal sample of 1,911 Indian children. Estimates included extensive child and household controls and lagged cognitive scores to address unobserved individual heterogeneity in ability and early investments. Overall, household food insecurity at any age predicted lower vocabulary, reading, maths and English scores in early adolescence. Adolescents from households that transitioned from food insecurity at age 5 to food security at a later age, and adolescents from chronically food insecure households had the lowest scores across all outcomes. There was heterogeneity in the relationship between temporal occurrence of food insecurity and cognitive skills, based on developmental and curriculum-specific timing of skill formation. Results were robust to additional explanations of the “household food insecurity gap”, i.e. education and health investments, parental and children's educational aspirations, and children's psychosocial skills.     

高校在校生私人教育支出及付费意愿研究

本研究对北京地区部分高校实施了问卷调查 ,重点考察了普通高校、高职学校和民办大学在校学生的私人教育支出状况、影响因素及其付费意愿。研究发现 ,学生就读的年级、学校类型、学科类型以及家庭收入水平是影响私人教育支出的主要因素 ,家庭资助 (支付 )依然是大学生求学期间的首位经济来源 ;伴随着学费水平的提高 ,受教育者的付费意愿有所降低 ,而且不同家庭收入水平受教育者的付费意愿的差距有拉大的趋势。     

Contribution of rural roads improvement on children’s school attendance: Evidence in Cambodia

This study used quantitative and qualitative data collected in rural Cambodia after road improvements to investigate whether children living along better-conditioned roads attend basic education school more. The quantitative analysis revealed that the road conditions did not influence children's attendance, while suggesting significant influences of school travel distance as well as household’s ownership of two-wheeled vehicles and its member composition. The qualitative analysis complemented these results by confirming that improved roads motivated households to purchase those vehicles for easing children’s schooling; and household members’ appreciation of education and socioeconomic characteristics influenced their children’s education attainment.     

我国公共养老保险资产积累特征、预算约束与对策

我国1997年步入“预先融资”轨道,已积累万亿多公共养老资产,具有政府主导型特征,社保战略储备加快积累的压力根于我国基本养老保险的非资产化。个账做实与统账平衡受到当前统账平衡状况及其资金缺口的约束,需要规范基本保险对国家预算的资金依存关系,强化对社保基金的投资管理,改善基本保险账户收支状况,恢复预先融资,提高基金化程度,运用各种公共政策鼓励市场化养老保险资产的积累。     

The public returns to public educational investments in African-American males

This paper calculates the public savings (financial benefits) from greater public investments in the education of African-American males. Over one-fifth of each age cohort of black males in US is not a high school graduate. We identify five interventions that would—based on credible research—increase the graduation rate; we also report the public cost of each intervention. We then calculate the lifetime public benefits in terms of increased tax revenues and lower spending on health and crime. In present values, for a black male aged 20, these public benefits amount to $256,700 per new graduate and the median intervention would cost only $90,700. The benefit/cost ratio is 2.83. Simply equating the high school graduation rate of black males with that of white males would yield public savings of $3.98 billion for each age cohort. These results suggest that increased investments in education for black males at risk of dropping out of high school should be an economic priority.     

我国城镇居民家庭义务教育支出差异性研究

本文采用国家统计局“城市住户基本情况的调查”数据对城镇居民家庭义务教育负担状况进行了实证研究，结论表明：有在校生的城镇家庭是一类经济状况处于相对弱势的群体；城镇居民家庭的义务教育负担随着家庭收入的上升而下降，且低收入阶层家庭的教育负担远高于高收入阶层家庭的教育负担；在校生的教育层级越高．家庭教育负担程度越高；在影响我国城镇居民家庭义务教育负担总量和结构的诸多因素中，家庭收入、子女受教育的层级、父母的行业和职业等变量具有显著性影响。为了促进义务教育乃至整个教育的公平，政府应该为义务教育提供更充分的财政支持。并切实完善和实施义务教育资助制度。     

Retirement Savings Behavior of Higher Education Employees

Higher education employees often participate in university-sponsored defined contribution pension plans that place the investment decision responsibility upon them. In order to examine investment decision-making behavior with retirement savings plans we investigated attitude-mediated, individual difference determinants of risky decision-making behavior in employer-sponsored defined contribution retirement plans. Using a field survey of 795 higher education employees, who participated in one of four defined contribution savings plans, we tested a risk taking model using data on the employees’ investment allocations in their defined contribution savings plan. We found that an attitudinal preference toward risk and a perception of opportunity served as mediators for the relationships among employees’ dispositional characteristics and their retirement savings behavior. We also found that investment knowledge directly affected risk taking behavior. Implications of the results for higher education institutions are discussed. Funding for this study was provided by TIAA-CREF and is gratefully acknowledged by the authors.     

Children's education and the intergenerational transmission of inequality: a simulation

Data from the 1970 Brazilian Census are used to explore the effects of parents' investments in their children's education on the pattern of future income distribution and on the intergenerational transmission of inequality, using a simulation model. Starting from the observation that the number of children in low-income households is greater on average than the number in high-income households, the paper focuses primarily on whether and how child schooling mediates the effect of the negative relation between income per child and household size on shifts in the income distribution toward greater inequality, and on lack of intergenerational mobility. The paper examines the implications of different assumptions regarding increases in the availability of schooling, shifts in the returns to schooling and the role of inherited traits in the determination of future incomes and intergenerational mobility. Cross-section measures of inequality are insensitive to schooling and inherited traits, but these do affect intergenerational mobility.