Educational Inequalities Among School Leavers in Ireland 1979-1994

THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL REVIEW

Table 1: Educational Level Completed by Gender and Year Left School

The overall pattern of change — an increase in Leaving Certificate completion
with fewer early leavers — is apparent within each of the social class groupings⁸
(Tables 2a and 2b). By 1994, the majority of young people from each social class
stay on to the Leaving Certificate, with second-level completion rates doubling
among the unskilled manual group over the period from 1979. In spite of a
general increase in educational attainment among school-leavers over the period,
social class differences are still apparent. Second-level completion rates are
particularly high among the professional groups, with the vast majority of these
young people staying on to the Leaving Certificate. Rates of early leaving (“no
qualifications”) are highest among the manual, especially the unskilled manual
groups; among the 1994 cohort, over one-tenth of young men from unskilled
manual backgrounds leave school without sitting any formal examination while
this is the case for fewer than 1 per cent of those from higher professional
backgrounds.

Controlling for social class, young women are more likely to stay on to the
Leaving Certificate than young men. These differences are particularly marked
among those from farming and manual backgrounds. The pattern among those
from a farming background is likely to reflect differential strategies on the part
of farm families for their sons and daughters. Involvement in the family farm
appears to act as an incentive for earlier withdrawal from full-time education
among males, although this effect seems to have diminished over time, most
likely in response to the contraction of the agricultural sector. In contrast,
educational participation is likely to represent a more important route to
employment for young women from a farming background.

The nature of social class differences, and the extent to which these differences

8. The exception to this pattern is found among young women from higher professional
backgrounds. This pattern appears to be due to sampling variation as Leaving Certificate completion
rates are over 90 per cent for other years in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

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