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ERIC Number: EJ697566
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2005-Oct
Pages: 15
Abstractor: Author
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0272-7757
EISSN: N/A
The Effects of Home Computers on School Enrollment
Fairlie, R.W.
Economics of Education Review, v24 n5 p533-547 Oct 2005
Approximately 9 out of 10 high school students who have access to a home computer use that computer to complete school assignments. Do these home computers, however, improve educational outcomes? Using the Computer and Internet Use Supplement to the 2001 Current Population Survey, I explore whether access to home computers increases the likelihood of school enrollment among teenagers who have not graduated from high school. A comparison of school enrollment rates reveals that 95.2% of children who have home computers are enrolled in school, whereas only 85.4% of children who do not have home computers are enrolled in school. Controlling for family income, parental education, parental occupation and other observable characteristics in probit regressions for the probability of school enrollment, I find a difference of 1.4 percentage points. Although the evidence is mixed on whether the errors are correlated, I also estimate bivariate probit models for the joint probability of school enrollment and owning a home computer and find larger effects (7.7 percentage points). Use of computers and the Internet by the child's mother and father are used as exclusion restrictions. The estimates are not sensitive to alternative combinations of exclusion restrictions and alternative samples.
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Publication Type: Journal Articles
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: N/A
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A