Arbeitspapier
Date of Birth and Selective Schooling
We examine the effects of date of birth on state selective education using the 1944 Education Act in England and Wales as a natural experiment. We compare the probabilities of gaining selective school entry – which in our study period meant attending a grammar school – before and after the Act using a difference-in-difference approach. Before 1944, grammar school entry was achieved either noncompetitively through fee-paying or free based on a competitive 11+ exam. After 1944, all children were required to take a competitive 11+ exam and about one-third gained a grammar school place. Pre-1944 we find the children born in the middle or late in the school year (January to August) fared significantly worse in gaining a grammar school place than those born at the beginning of the school year (from September to December). Post-1944, the prospects of grammar school entry among children born in the middle of the school year (January to April) improved considerably. We argue that a greater recourse to age standardisation of 11+ test scores may well have accounted for this outcome. The youngest 'summer children' (those born at the end of the school year from May to August) remained significantly disadvantaged, however. A strong influence was the practice of streaming (or tracking) junior school children at age 7 into classes delineated by average ability.
- Language
-
Englisch
- Bibliographic citation
-
Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 10949
- Classification
-
Wirtschaft
Analysis of Education
Education and Inequality
Education: Government Policy
- Subject
-
date of birth
selective schooling
class streaming
- Event
-
Geistige Schöpfung
- (who)
-
Hart, Robert A.
Moro, Mirko
- Event
-
Veröffentlichung
- (who)
-
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
- (where)
-
Bonn
- (when)
-
2017
- Handle
- Last update
-
10.03.2025, 11:45 AM CET
Data provider
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. If you have any questions about the object, please contact the data provider.
Object type
- Arbeitspapier
Associated
- Hart, Robert A.
- Moro, Mirko
- Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
Time of origin
- 2017