| The purpose of this dissertation is to examine what variables have a stronger incidence on educational attainment in Argentina. I evaluate the impact that several personal, family background and socioeconomic characteristics have on continuation probabilities at different schooling levels after controlling for changes in the returns to education and other macroeconomic variables such as unemployment and inflation rates.;In the model used for the analysis, the probability of schooling attainment is derived from the sequence of grade transition probabilities. By dividing schooling into stages, the schooling-transition model parcels out differentials in overall schooling attainment into differentials in transition rates at various stages. I estimate this model of sequential binary choices using twenty-four years of data extracted from the Argentine Permanent Household Survey (Encuesta Permanente de Hogares), which is similar to the U.S. Current Population Survey. The period covered in this research ranges from 1975 to 1998.;The results show that family income has a small incidence on average continuation probabilities compared to the effects caused by other variables like the number of siblings or parental education. There is also a remarkable difference between males and females in schooling attainment. Females have been achieving more educational attainment than men have during the last decades, though it used not to be like that in the past. Regarding the type of parental union, the results are suggestive of a certain positive value derived from family commitment. The positive benefit from having the two parents living at home is clearly present when parents are married. Students whose parents live in consensual union show poorer levels of schooling achievement. When only one parent is present, it is generally more beneficial for the student if the mother is the one at home. There is no clear evidence that short-term macroeconomic distress significantly affects the general trends of educational attainment, especially at lower and middle schooling levels. |
