Private School Choice: The Effects of Religious Affiliation and Participation [Cohen-Zada; Sander]
Danny Cohen-Zada (Ben-Gurion University) and William Sander (DePaul University)
In this paper, we quantify the religious factor in private education in the United States by estimating a Random Utility Model of school-choice in which households choose among public, private-nonsectarian, Catholic and Protestant schools. In our model households differ not only in their income levels but also in their religion and religiosity levels. The model is then estimated using multinomial logit and multinomial probit regressions of attendance at different types of private schools using individual data from the “General Social Survey”. We find that both religion and religiosity have important effects on the demand for the different types of private schools. Further, it is shown that if religiosity is not taken into account (the usual case), the effect of religion on demand is biased. Our results imply that previous studies on the treatment effect of Catholic schools that have not taken into account the selection of high-religiosity youth into Catholic schools over-estimated the positive influence of Catholic schools.
File: Zada-Cohen-2007paper.doc [664.00KB]
Published 11/02/2007
Filed under: (2007), *cohen-zada, *sander, @asrec'07, catholic, catholic school, demand for schooling, gss, protestant, religious education, school choice