Volume 11, Number 2 (Spring) 1976
Edwards, Linda Nasif. 1976. "School Retention of Teenagers over the Business Cycle." Journal of Human Resources 11(2):200-208.
Variation in school retention and enrollment rates of teenagers, males and females, all races and nonwhites, are examined over the business cycle for the post war period. It is found that both the retention and enrollment rates of teenage girls vary procyclically. For teenage boys, however, there is no response of enrollment and retention rates to changes in business conditions (with the exception of nonwhite males whose enrollment rates vary countercyclically). This difference in cyclical sensitivity is attributed to the lesser degree of cyclical variation in opportunity costs for teenage girls than for teenage boys, which results from girls' superior productive opportunities in the home.
The author is Assistant Professor, Queens College, City University of New York. I am indebted to Barry Chiswick, Franklin Edwards, and Jacob Mincer for numerous comments on earlier drafts of this paper, and to Glen Cain and anonymous referees for aid in preparing the final revision.
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