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THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL REVIEW
have completed the Leaving Certificate level since third-level entry in the Irish
context is contingent upon completion of (and performance in) the Leaving
Certificate. The pattern of change over time is positive for both males and
females, reflecting the growth in third-level provision over the 1980s and early
1990s. However, the increase is statistically significant only for female school-
leavers. There are strong class differences in participation for both males and
females. In the case of males, the odds of third-level participation are increased
by a factor of 4.6 for those from a higher professional background relative to the
unskilled manual group. In general, the effects of social class background on
third-level participation have not changed significantly over the period 1979 to
1994. The only exception to this pattern is a slight but significant widening of
the gap between higher professional and unskilled manual groups.
Pooling the data on male and female school-leavers allows us to directly test
gender differences in third-level entry while controlling for the effects of social
class. The negative coefficient for gender indicates significantly lower third-
level participation rates among young women than young men at the beginning
of the period. However, the gender-year interaction term indicates a much
sharper increase in women’s participation over time (Table 8). Class effects on
third-level participation operate in a similar manner for men and women. The
exception to this occurs among the farming group, where female participation
is significantly higher than that of males due to differential patterns of farm
inheritance and their implications for educational participation.
This pattern is quite different from the one suggested by a recent survey of
third-level entrants. Clancy (1995) has indicated that estimated participation
rates derived from data on third-level (HEA) entrants suggest a decrease in
socio-economic inequalities in participation over the period 1980 to 1992. The
discrepancy between the two sets of analyses may be attributable to a number
of factors. First, the definition of socio-economic background differs since Clancy
uses fathers’ socio-economic group while analyses in this paper are based on
parental social class (defined in relation to the “dominant” parent). However,
these differences do not account for the discrepancies found since analyses of
the school leavers’ surveys using fathers’ socio-economic group reveal very similar
patterns of change over time to those based on parental social class.
A second source of variation could relate to changes over time in the method
of data collection used for the HEA survey. In 1980 and 1986 information on
socio-economic background was provided by students as part of their application
to the Central Admissions Office. For the 1992 survey, however, this practice of
collecting information on socio-economic group was discontinued. Instead the
information was collected by a separate postal questionnaire where the
opportunity was taken to improve the quality of the data by collecting information
on principal economic status and by the provision of an explanatory note