New evidence on the link between housing environment and children's educational attainments

There is extensive literature that posits the hypothesis that a better housing environment enhances a child's educational attainment. However, there is little causal evidence demonstrating the presence of this effect. In this study, we examine the effect of housing environment on a child's...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of urban economics Vol. 64; no. 2; pp. 408 - 421
Main Authors Lien, Hsien-ming, Wu, Wen-chieh, Lin, Chu-chia
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York Elsevier Inc 01.09.2008
Elsevier
Elsevier BV
SeriesJournal of Urban Economics
Subjects
Academic achievement
Bildungsverhalten
Buildings
Children
Correlation analysis
Economic theory
Educational attainment
Enrollments
Home ownership
Housing
Housing environment
Housing environment Educational attainment Quantity-quality trade-off
Kind
Level of education
Neighbourhoods
Quantity-quality trade-off
Residence
Standort
Studies
Taiwan
Wohnung
Taiwan
R2
I2
Quantity-quality trade-off
Housing environment
Educational attainment
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Summary:There is extensive literature that posits the hypothesis that a better housing environment enhances a child's educational attainment. However, there is little causal evidence demonstrating the presence of this effect. In this study, we examine the effect of housing environment on a child's educational attainment using census files covering the entire population of Taiwan. Because the Taiwan census data contains unique address information for every household, we try to control the neighborhood effect and unobserved family heterogeneity by comparing a child with his peers of the same age cohort in the same neighborhood. After accounting for tens of thousand area dummies, the chance of high school enrollment for teens (aged 16 and 17) and college enrollment for young adults (aged 19 and 20) is found to be positively correlated with an increase in floor space, an increase in residential stability and with homeownership, but negatively correlated to an increase in housing crowdedness and an increase in building age. Among these housing variables, residential stability and homeownership are the ones generating the largest positive effects on the child's schooling.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-1
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ISSN:0094-1190
1095-9068
DOI:10.1016/j.jue.2008.03.002