EduAttain: A Statistical Analysis of the Impact of Different Demographic Indicators on Educational Attainment
Persistent URL
Author(s)
Doniz, Kyrie
Date Issued
May 5, 2023
Abstract
Over the last fifty years, trends in educational attainment have reflected simultaneous movements towards closing and widening disparities between different identity groups. Studying educational attainment, and more specifically, educational inequity, is vital because of the implications for future work opportunities, financial security, and resource access. EduAttain identifies and investigates the role certain demographic factors play as determinants of educational attainment, namely, sex, race, and Hispanic ethnicity. Leveraging data from IPUMS, and using R, R Shiny, and SQLite, trends in educational attainment across different identity groups are studied through the use of pie charts to display results and draw comparisons displayed on a web-based dashboard. The statistical relationship between these factors and educational attainment are studied using a binary logistic regression, to determine what populations had a higher odds of having a high school diploma or greater. The findings of this project affirm some of the findings presented in the literature, while providing new insight into certain racial and Hispanic ethnic subgroups rates of educational attainment. In general, the highest attaining populations in educational attainment were the White, Non-Hispanic, and Female populations, compared to all other respective identity groups. Within the Hispanic ethnic group, the Cuban population maintained the highest level of educational attainment, relative to all other Hispanic ethnic subgroups. Furthermore, these results establish that the Human Capital Model fails to consider certain aspects of identity that may greatly influence the level of education an individual attains, outside of the influence of income and financial investments into education.
Major
Computer Science
Economics
First Reader(s)
Jumadinova, Janyl A.
Other Reader(s)
Bianco, Timothy P.
Department
Business and Economics
Computer Science
Type of Publication
Senior Project Paper
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
Name
SeniorThesis (56).pdf
Description
completed thesis
Size
1.49 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
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