Parental Job Loss, Income Shocks and the Education Enrolment of Youth

Parental job loss from layoffs and business failures that occur when youth complete high school completion are found to be negatively correlated with enrolment at university and community college. Estimates from a year-to-year education transition model using longitudinal data on youth and their parents are employed to identify both immediate and lagged effects of parental job loss on education transitions. It is argued that these results can be interpreted as evidence of a potential causal effect of parental income on youth education attainment, as job losses are likely to have persistent and exogenous negative effects on parental income.