Unequal Admissions in English Secondary Schools
Research SeminarsChoice Inequality and Parental Strategies
Data from the English secondary school admissions cycle reveals a substantial ethnic gap in the proportion accessing their chosen schools. Children from ethnic minority groups are, on average, 17% less likely to be admitted into their top-ranked secondary school, compared to white children. This gap is large even after controlling for socio-economic status and prior attainment. However, as welfare indicators, these statistics rely on strong assumptions of truthful preference reporting in ranked lists. Constraints on the length of preference lists mean that this assumption may be violated, and gaps in chances of admission may be due, at least in part, to ethnic heterogeneity in ranking strategies. By accounting for strategic stated preferences, this paper recovers parametric estimates of preference parameters, and estimates the degree of consideration of admission probabilities when choosing which schools to rank. The corrected revealed preference estimates are used to estimate welfare comparisons between demographic groups. The analysis reveals that both underlying preferences and strategising behaviour exhibit substantial heterogeneity by demographic. When comparing welfare, differences in chances of admission between white and ethnic minority families (mainly due to faith school admissions and catchment areas) create small but significant and consistent differences in welfare.
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