Is education the mechanism through which family background affects economic outcomes? A generalised approach to mediation analysis

Mendolia, S; Siminski, P

Is education the mechanism through which family background affects economic outcomes? A generalised approach to mediation analysis

Mendolia, S

Siminski, P

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Publication Type:: Journal Article
Citation:: Economics of Education Review, 2017, 59 pp. 1 - 12
Issue Date:: 2017-08-01

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Mendolia, S https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8902-6394	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Siminski, P https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3099-8049	en_US
dc.date.available	2020-05-25T19:12:03Z
dc.date.issued	2017-08-01	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	Economics of Education Review, 2017, 59 pp. 1 - 12	en_US
dc.identifier.issn	0272-7757	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/124275
dc.description.abstract	© 2017 Elsevier Ltd We seek to quantify the role of education as a mechanism through which family background affects economic outcomes. To this end, we generalise mediation analysis to allow for multidimensional treatments. This improves the validity of mediation analysis for our application, in which family background is exogenous and multidimensional. Our approach allows the mediating role of education to vary across background characteristics, whilst also estimating its overall mediating effect. We estimate that educational attainment explains 21%–37% of the family background effect on hourly earnings in Australia, and only 13%–19% of the effect on wealth. We argue that these estimates are likely upward-biased. Therefore the link between family background and economic outcomes operates mostly through other mechanisms.	en_US
dc.relation.ispartof	Economics of Education Review	en_US
dc.relation.isbasedon	10.1016/j.econedurev.2017.05.001	en_US
dc.subject.classification	Economics	en_US
dc.title	Is education the mechanism through which family background affects economic outcomes? A generalised approach to mediation analysis	en_US
dc.type	Journal Article
utslib.citation.volume	59	en_US
utslib.for	1402 Applied Economics	en_US
pubs.embargo.period	Not known	en_US
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Business
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Business/Economics Discipline
utslib.copyright.status	open_access
pubs.publication-status	Published	en_US
pubs.volume	59	en_US

Abstract:

© 2017 Elsevier Ltd We seek to quantify the role of education as a mechanism through which family background affects economic outcomes. To this end, we generalise mediation analysis to allow for multidimensional treatments. This improves the validity of mediation analysis for our application, in which family background is exogenous and multidimensional. Our approach allows the mediating role of education to vary across background characteristics, whilst also estimating its overall mediating effect. We estimate that educational attainment explains 21%–37% of the family background effect on hourly earnings in Australia, and only 13%–19% of the effect on wealth. We argue that these estimates are likely upward-biased. Therefore the link between family background and economic outcomes operates mostly through other mechanisms.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10453/124275