Educational Inequalities Among School Leavers in Ireland 1979-1994

EDUCATIONAL INEQUALITIES AMONG SCHOOL LEAVERS

without qualifications. Significant class differences are evident in educational
level completed. The odds of completing the Leaving Certificate are highest
among the higher professional group; being from a higher professional back-
ground increases the odds of completing the Leaving Certificate among females
by a factor of 38 relative to being from an unskilled manual background.
Interestingly, rates of staying on to the Junior or Leaving Certificate are
somewhat lower among the skilled manual group than among semi-skilled
manual families, a pattern which may reflect some “pull” out of education into
apprenticeships among young men from skilled manual backgrounds (see
Hannan et al., 1997). Being from a farming background is found to significantly
increase the chances of Leaving Certificate completion, with a more marked
effect among females than males, a pattern consistent with differential parental
strategies for farm sons and daughters.

Controlling for social class, there has been a significant increase in the odds
of Leaving Certificate completion over the period 1979 to 1994 but no discernible
trends in junior cycle completion relative to leaving without qualifications.
Testing for changes over time in the effect of social class membership indicates
some differences for particular class groupings. For example, the odds of Leaving
Certificate completion appear to have increased for skilled manual workers and
farmers relative to unskilled manual workers, with some evidence of a decline
in the relative difference between lower professional and unskilled workers,
though the latter effect is significant for females only. Leaving Certificate
completion has also disproportionately increased over time for farm males,
perhaps in response to contracting employment opportunities in the agricultural
sector. In spite of these shifts, there is no evidence that educational expansion
resulted in a net decline in social class inequalities in educational attainment
over the period considered.

Table 4 allows us to assess the nature of both gender and social class
differences in educational participation rates over the period 1979 to 1994. A
number of non-significant terms have been removed from the model for ease of
interpretation. Young women have higher odds of staying on to the Leaving
Certificate as opposed to leaving without qualifications, but lower odds of junior
cycle completion, relative to young men from the same social background. Social
class relativities are broadly similar for junior and senior cycle completion, with
the highest rates of completion found among the higher professional group. The
rates for those from a farming background fall between those for the non-manual
and manual groups. While the pattern of social class inequalities is broadly
similar for young men and women, some differences are apparent. In particular,
being from a farming background has a stronger effect on Leaving Certificate
completion for females than for males, a difference which reflects gendered farm
inheritance patterns. In addition, being from an “other non-manual” background

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