Educated parents invest more on kid?s higher education

Updated on: Wednesday, January 04, 2012

The chances of children having a parent with a graduate degree and above pursuing higher education is 40% higher than the one who has an illiterate parent, says a research by a faculty member of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A).The study also found that the chances of women participating in higher education are higher than that of men in India.

"Female children of Indian households seem to have better chance of getting higher education than male.The female children, are likely to have reasons for not being married off at that typical Indian 'marriageable' age. Their participation in higher education which provides them with better career options might have driven them to stay-off from the marriage market," says the paper 'Parental Education as a Criterion for Affirmative Action in Higher Education: A Preliminary Analysis' by IIM-A faculty Rakesh Basant and Gitanjali Sen, fellow at Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi.

When India is implementing reservation in higher education and government jobs, the research feels that greater focus on educating parents will result in parents investing more in their children's human capital.

The paper explores if criteria other than caste and community can be used to form the basis for affirmative action for greater participation in higher education and reduce need for reservation. The study also cites the example of 2009-10, when less than 2% children of parents who are non-literate were enrolled in higher education while this percentage was about 15% for parents with a graduate degree.

"The marginal effects of parents' education are highly positive and significant as parents with better quality education may affect their children's choices more effectively. More interestingly, the impact of parental education increases dramatically as parental education category changes from illiteracy to secondary, higher secondary to graduate education, with graduate education having the largest impact," the study says.

Times of India

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