Parental and School Responses to Student Performance: Evidence from School Entry Rules

Abstract: This paper investigates whether school and parental investments reinforce or compensate for student disadvantage. Using data from 34 countries, we exploit plausibly exogenous variation in achievement due to students’ expected relative age (date of birth in relation to legal school entry cutoff date). Students who are predicted to be older for their grade outperform their younger peers but do not differ systematically in pre-determined characteristics. Parents react to reductions in performance by providing more resources – they help with homework to a greater extent and maternal employment falls. Schools respond by assigning low-performing students to smaller classes and remedial tutoring to a greater extent. School and parental adjustments are unrelated to student performance at school start as well as absolute age. Parental responses are larger among high-educated parents than among low-educated parents. Compensatory investments in children are thus pervasive. Such behavior reduces the inequality in skills and economic outcomes in this and subsequent generations, and helps explain why the effects of policy interventions fades out over time and vary by socioeconomic background.

Presentation is based on paper 1) Parental and School Responses to Student Performance:Evidence from School Entry Rules with co-authors Björn Öckert and Lucas Tilley and paper 2) Mandatory Notice of Layoff, Job Search, and Efficiency with co-authors Jonas Cederlöf, Arash Nekoei and David Seim.