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theses

This dissertation focuses on examining the determinants of children’s educational attainment in different settings. Specifically, Chapters 2 and 3 examine two key determinants of children’s educational attainment in Egypt: parents’ levels of education and mother’s hours of work. Chapter 4 examines the evolution of common schooling in the nineteenth century in New Jersey. Since New Jersey in the nineteenth century shared many characteristics with developing countries today, having a better understanding of the rapid rise in school attendance in this setting should guide policy-makers in constructing the appropriate policies that may target educational attainment in developing countries. In Chapter 2, I examine the relationship between income inequality and the intergenerational correlation in educational attainment in Egypt. I test whether the correlation between parents’ and children’s education is stronger or weaker in governorates with high income inequality. My results suggest a nonlinear relationship. School enrollment for children whose fathers are poorly educated is very low regardless of the degree of income inequality, whereas enrollment for children whose fathers are highly educated increases as the degree of income inequality increases. Notably, enrollment for children whose fathers have medium level of education decreases as the degree of income inequality increases. In Chapter 3, I analyze the relationship between maternal labor supply and children’s schooling in Egypt. The results suggest that a mother’s employment adversely affects her children’s school enrollment and grade attainment. These results are consistent across all children’s outcome variables, and across different definitions of mother’s work. As mother’s hours of work increase, however, these adverse effects start to diminish. Once a mother’s hours reach 24 in 2006 sample and 46 in 1998 sample, the effects on child’s school enrollment and grade attainment become positive. Since a large percentage of working mothers have no schooling, I speculate that this positive effect is attributed to the increased household income from more hours of work, which compensates for the decrease in maternal time spent with children. In Chapter 4, I examine the rise in school enrollment rates and increase in the length of school sessions in New Jersey in the nineteenth century. My results show that counties that were more urban and more industrialized observed higher school attendance rates. This result can be attributed to the increase in the demand for skilled labor resulting from the process of industrialization. Moreover, counties with more immigrants and more state appropriations had longer school sessions. This result can be an evidence of the desire of elite groups, who were controlling local school committees, to use public education as a socialization device to reduce social, religious and ethnic tensions, lower crime rates and promote democratic values.

ETD_5701

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

by Omayma Elsheniti

doi:10.7282/T3K072RQ

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.