6 Results from the empirical analysis
6.2 Main results
6.2.1 Regression on dropouts
Starting off with the regression containing only the variables on gender and
citizenship. The coefficient is negative and significant of being female on the probability of becoming a dropout compared to being male. The coefficient is positive and significant of being foreign on the probability of becoming a dropout, compared to having a Norwegian citizenship. Being female is associated with an approximately 8% lower probability of becoming a dropout compared to being male. Being foreign is associated with a higher dropout probability when only controlling for these two variables. Moving on to model 2 parental education is included as explanatory variables.
45 Number of obs 57,593 F(32, 57561) 796,42 Prob > F 0.0000
R-squared 0.2379
Root MSE 0.41461
Table 14. Regression results for the probabiltiy of becoming a dropout
Probability of dropping out, whole sample
Model 1 b/se
Model 2 b/se
Model 3 b/se
Model 4 b/se
Model 5 b/se
Female -0.080***
(0.00)
-0.082***
(0.00)
-0.081***
(0.00)
0.011**
(0.00)
-0.030 (0.08)
Foreign 0.051***
(0.02)
0.085***
(0.02)
0.090***
(0.02)
0.041 (0.02)
0.041 (0.02) Mother’s education
Lower sec -0.059***
(0.02)
-0.065**
(0.02)
-0.059**
(0.02)
-0.057**
(0.02)
Upper sec, basic -0.173***
(0.02)
-0.180***
(0.02)
-0.110***
(0.02)
-0.108***
(0.02)
Upper sec, final -0.187***
(0.02)
-0.193***
(0.02)
-0.108***
(0.02)
-0.106***
(0.02)
Supplementary -0.237***
(0.02)
-0.241***
(0.02)
-0.124***
(0.02)
-0.122***
(0.02) Short university or
college
-0.249***
(0.02)
-0.257***
(0.02)
-0.117***
(0.02)
-0.016***
(0.02) Long university or
college
-0.271***
(0.02)
-0.276***
(0.02)
-0.106***
(0.02)
-0.105***
(0.02)
Researcher -0.287***
(0.03)
-0.298**
(0.03)
-0.118 (0.03)
-0.117***
(0.03) Father’s education
Lower sec 0.046
(0.03)
0.039 (0.03)
0.034 (0.02)
0.033 (0.02)
Upper sec, basic -0.051
(0.03)
-0.057**
(0.03)
-0.014 (0.02)
-0.014 (0.02)
Upper sec, final -0.074**
(0.03)
-0.078**
(0.03)
-0.023 (0.02)
-0.023 (0.02)
Supplementary -0.083**
(0.03)
-0.090**
(0.03)
-0.012 (0.02)
-0.012 (0.02) Short university or
college
-0.133***
(0.03)
-0.137***
(0.03)
-0.023 (0.02)
-0.024 (0.02) Long university or
college
-0.146***
(0.03)
-0.146***
(0.03)
-0.011 (0.02)
-0.012 (0.02)
Researcher -0.142*** -0.146*** 0.002 -0.004
46
(0.03) (0.03) (0.03) (0.03)
School region
Mid 0.029**
(0.01)
0.025**
(0.01)
0.025**
(0.01)
East 0.004
(0.01)
0.017*
(0.01)
0.017*
(0.01)
West -0.000
(0.01)
0.024**
(0.01)
0.024**
(0.01)
North 0.109***
(0.01)
0.119***
(0.01)
0.119***
(0.01) Average grades
2 -0.044
(0.03)
-0.058 (0.03)
3 -0.273***
(0.03)
-0.297***
(0.03)
4 -0.615***
(0.03)
-0.618***
(0.03)
5 -0.788***
(0.05)
-0.799***
(0.03)
6 -0.804***
(0.03)
-0.821***
(0.04) Interaction, gender
and grades
Female * 2 0.049
(0.08)
Female * 3 0.075
(0.08)
Female * 4 0.022
(0.08)
Female * 5 0.041
(0.08)
Female * 6 0.049
(0.08)
Constant 0.382***
(0.00)
0.626***
(0.03)
0.622***
(0.03)
0.987***
(0.04)
0.997***
(0.04)
R-sqr 0.007 0.065 0.070 0.237 0.238
N 57593 57593 57593 57593 57593
BIC 77260 73959 73705 62315 62338
*p<0.05, **p<0.01, ***p<0.001
The coefficient on female is still negative and significant, slightly more negative than in the previous regression. I would expect the coefficient not to change when adding parental education, but there can be other variables that affect both being female and what level of
47 education parents get that can affect the estimated coefficient. Being foreign still has positive significant coefficient and has increased compared to the model 1. When including parental education, the dropout probability from being foreign is 8.5% higher compared to being not foreign. Mother’s education has a negative and significant association on dropout probability for all levels of education. The coefficients are more negative for higher levels of education, implying that highly educated mothers are significantly negatively associated with the dropout probability of the pupil. Having a mother with a PhD is associated with a 28.7%
lower dropout probability compared to the pupils that have mothers with no or primary education. The education of the father is positive for lower secondary school and negative for all other levels. As for the education of the mothers the coefficients are more negative for higher levels of education, with only the highest levels being significant. The biggest negative association with the probability of being a dropout is when fathers have long tertiary
education10. Having a father with long university or college degree is associated with 14.6%
lower dropout probability compared to when fathers have primary school as highest obtained education. This coefficient is approximately half of the size as the most negative coefficient on mother’s education, indicating that education of mothers has a stronger negative
relationship with the dropout probability compared to fathers.
In the third model I am adding variables on school region. The coefficient on female is marginally changed when introducing this variable, still being negative and significant. The coefficient on being foreign is slightly increasing and still significant. The coefficients on mother education are still negative and significant, but slightly more negative for all
educational levels. Researcher education still has the biggest negative coefficient on dropout probability, while lower secondary education is the least negative coefficient. This implies that every level of education the mother takes on above primary education is associated with a decreased probability of dropping out. All coefficients on father education has the same signs as before, with the coefficients being slightly smaller and more negative. The most negative coefficient on dropout probability is having long tertiary education, and the only coefficient that is positively associated with dropout probability is having lower secondary education.
Individuals with fathers with long tertiary education is associated with a 14.6% lower probability of dropping out compared to pupils with fathers that only has primary school as highest obtained education. Regarding school region there is a positive and significant
10 Long tertiary contains both PhD and long university or college degree
48
association on dropout probability from going to school in Mid and North compared to going to school in South. The biggest positive coefficient on dropout probability is going to school in North, and the smallest is West. Being a pupil in the Northern region is associated with an increase in the probability of dropping out by 10.9% compared to going to school in South.
In the fourth model grade averages from lower secondary school is included. The coefficient on female is now positive and significant, increased from the last model. This implies that grades and gender is correlated due to the big change in the coefficient on being female when grades are included in the regression. The coefficient on foreign is still positive but has decreased compared to the previous model and is not significant anymore. All coefficient on education for mothers are negative, all still significant except from researcher mothers. The coefficients have increased from the previous model, hence being less negative, implying that the educational levels have a smaller negative association now. This change in coefficients for mother’s education when including grades implies that there is a connection between pupil’s grades from lower secondary school and mother’s education. The coefficient associated with the lowest probability of being a dropout is having mothers with
supplementary education. No coefficients on father is significant anymore, but the signs remain unchanged. All coefficients increased when including grades except for the coefficient on lower secondary education that increased slightly. The biggest coefficient is from lower secondary and the smallest is long tertiary education. The same intuition follows as for mother’s education regarding correlation between grades and father’s education. It is
interesting that when including grades, the coefficients on mother education increases, and all the coefficients of father’s education is also increased, except from the lowest level in the regression. The coefficients change in the same direction, but the coefficients on mother education is significant and more negative compared to the fathers. All of the coefficients on school region have a positive and significant association on dropout probability, with the highest being North and the lowest being East. All grade averages are negatively associated with dropout probability compared to a grade average of 1. The coefficients on grade averages of 3 and above is significantly negative on the probability of dropout, with the grade average of 6 as the most negative. Having a grade average of 6 is associated with 80.4% lower dropout probability compared to having a grade average of 1.
The final and complete regression model is given as model 5. In this regression there is not included new explanatory variables, but an interaction term between grades and gender.
49 There is a small negative coefficient on female and a positive coefficient on foreign on
dropout probability. All coefficients on mother’s education is significantly negative on
dropout probability, and the coefficients are somewhat less negative compared to the previous model. The coefficient on mother education that has the biggest negative association with dropout probability is having supplementary education as highest obtained education. All of the coefficients on father’s education is still insignificant and have barely changed since the last model, with the highest coefficient for lower secondary, and the lowest coefficient on short university or college. All the schooling regions are still positive and significant and has not changed compared to the last model. The coefficients on grade averages are still negative and averages over 2 are significantly negatively associated with dropout probability. The coefficients have decreased compared to the last model, making the coefficients more
negative. The interaction term coefficients are positive for all grade averages, with the biggest coefficient being the interaction for being female and having a grade average of 3. None of the coefficients are significant, implying that a change in the dropout probability associated with increasing grade averages does not significantly differ between males and females.