The Determinants of University Participation in Canada (1977-2003)

Abstract

Toute une gamme de nombreux facteurs influencent la décision de suivre des cours à l'université ; des facteurs allant des considérations économiques impactant la capacité financière jusqu'aux caractéristiques familiales telle que le niveau de scolarité des parents. Nous avons examiné la relation existant entre la participation à l'université et plusieurs variables économiques et non économiques sur une période des dernières 25 années au Canada. Nous avons quantifié l'importance de plusieurs facteurs trouvés dans les bases de données nous étant disponibles. Nous voulions comprendre les tendances portant sur la participation à l'université, et en particulier la tendance récente démontrant qu'un plus grand nombre déjeunes femmes que d'hommes choisissent de suivre des cours universitaires.

Our investigation of whether recent increases in university tuition have had a substantial effect on university participation is an important contribution to the literature. Earlier evidence of the impact of tuition fees in Canada has been mixed. Rivard and Raymond (2004), using the Youth in Transition Survey for 1997-1999 and for all provinces but Quebec and Ontario, found no evidence that tuition fees influenced post-secondary attendance; [Louis N. Christofides] et al. (2001) covered a period that extended only to 1993 (thus excluding more recent periods when tuition-fee increases have been substantial) and also found tuition fees had no effects on post-secondary attendance. However, [Johnson] and Rahman (2005) found some negative tuition effects on the younger of the two groups (17, 18, and 19 year olds) that they studied. Believing that tuition fees are endogenous, and using data from the master files of Statistics Canada's LFS (Labour Force Survey) for the 1979 to 2001 period, Neill (2005) estimated demand for university places by instrumenting tuition fees with the political party in power for the relevant province; she found some negative effects of tuition on the demand for university places. Coelli (2005a) used data from the first two panels (1993-1998 and 1996-2001) of SLID but found negative tuition effects only for children from low-income families.2 Fortin (2005) exploited differences across Canadian provinces and American states for the 1973 to 1999 period, finding some negative effects. In general, as noted earlier, the results of Canadian studies have been quite mixed. Substantial research has been conducted on the effect of tuition fees on enrolments in U.S. post-secondary education, and surveys of these studies have indicated that tuition increases have a negative impact on rates of enrolment (see Heller, 1997; Leslie & Brinkman, 1987). Thus, in this article, we offer an in-depth analysis of the impact of increases in real tuition fees on the demand for university attendance over a long period of time.

Some studies have used separate variables to capture the education level of both father and mother. However, when analysis is restricted to two-parent households, these variables are highly correlated and thus raise multicollinearity issues.11 An interesting study by Buchmann, DiPrete, and Powell (2003) that included both parental education levels found mixed effects as to which parent's education had more influence on a child's PSE-participation decision (see their Table 2); of particular note is their finding that daughters differentially benefit from both their mother's and father's higher levels of education (see pp. 24-25). Given that parental education levels are highly correlated, by using the education level of only the family head, we indirectly measured the impact of both parents' education and the importance of trends in parental education over time on university enrolments without creating a multicollinearity problem. A more-detailed analysis of the effects of mothers' and fathers' education - and those of single parents as well - on children's PSE attendance would be fruitful ground for future research.