Full Citation
Title: The Impact of the Earned Income Tax Credit on the Educational Investments of Single Mothers: Evidence from State EITCs
Citation Type: Working Paper
Publication Year: 2011
ISBN:
ISSN:
DOI:
NSFID:
PMCID:
PMID:
Abstract: A large literature fi nds that the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) increased the employment of low-educated single mothers. From a time-allocation perspective, and because EITCchanges the return to working, investments in education may change. Yet, there has been no work on the impact of EITC on education. I exploit state-time variation in the implementation of state EITC programs to obtain estimates of the causal eff ects of EITC on women's school enrollment. Using the October supplement of the Current Population Surveys from 1996 to 2008, I find that the probability of enrollment decreases 1.4 percentage points (about 14%) and the probability of college enrollment decreases 1.7 percentage points (about 19%) for a 10 percentage point increase in the state EITC supplement rate (or equivalently, a 10 percent increase in the federal EITC bene t). The high school degree completers are more responsive to EITC relative to high school dropouts. It appears that EITC causes some high school completers who would otherwise enroll in college full time to not enroll. There is very little adjustment from full time to part time college enrollment status. It is also the younger among low educated single mothers, for whom the enrollment response is larger.
User Submitted?: No
Authors: Celik, Sule
Series Title:
Publication Number:
Institution: University of Houston
Pages:
Publisher Location:
Data Collections: IPUMS CPS
Topics: Education, Family and Marriage
Countries: