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The Socioeconomic Return to Primary Schooling in Victorian England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2006

JASON LONG
JASON LONG
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, Colby College, 5243 Mayflower Hill, Waterville, ME 04901. E-mail: jason.long@colby.edu.
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Abstract

In this article I provide a micro-level analysis of primary schooling in Victorian England. Using a new dataset of school-age males linked between the 1851 and 1881 population censuses, I examine the determinants of childhood school attendance and the impact of attendance on adult labor market outcomes. I find that schooling had a positive effect on adult occupational class and that the associated wage gains were likely to have outweighed the cost of schooling. However, this effect was small relative to father's class, and the effect of education on earnings appears to have been small relative to modern results.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 66 , Issue 4 , December 2006 , pp. 1026 - 1053
Copyright
© 2006 The Economic History Association

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