Sample descriptive statistics

This section presents descriptive statistics for key child, household and community variables for which there are theoretical grounds to anticipate a relationship with educational mobility. At the child level, race, gender, age at first school enrolment, school phase in 2003, and grade repetition between 1997 and 2003 are explored. At the household level, maternal education, maternal marital status, and household SES in both 1997 and 2003 are considered. Finally, at the community level, the poverty of the area in which the child lives is documented, for three different levels of geography. The relationship between these variables and mobility behaviour will be tested in Chapter 6.

87 4.2.1 Child level variables

Race

As noted previously, the study sample is mostly black. While coloured children are reasonably well represented, white and Indian children are under-represented, and their numbers are also extremely small. The exact breakdown of study sample members across race groups is presented in Table 4.1 below.

Race Black African White Coloured Indian Number of

children (n=1428)

1,145 (80.18%)

41 (2.87%)

192 (13.45%)

50 (3.50%) Table 4.1: Breakdown of study sample members by race

Gender

The study sample is approximately evenly split between males and females (see Table 4.2 below).

Gender Male Female

Number of children (n=1428) 711 (49.79%) 717 (50.21%) Table 4.2: Breakdown of study sample members by gender

Age at first school enrolment

Overall, a very slight majority of sample members enrolled in school for the first time either early or on time for their age, while a slight minority enrolled late (see Table 4.3 below). The extent of late enrolment, at over 47%, is striking. However, as noted in Chapter 3, although the late-starters being their schooling a year later than their peers, the majority of them do not start their schooling outside of the two-year window for enrolment specified by policy.

Age at first enrolment Earlier Later

Number of children (n=1275) 673 (52.78%) 602 (47.22%)

Table 4.3: Breakdown of study sample members by age at first school enrolment

88 Schooling phase in 2003

Table 4.4, below, illustrates that by 2003, just under one third of children had progressed to high school, while just over two thirds remained in primary school. A sample member who started their primary schooling on time, and who had not repeated a grade, would be expected to have reached high school by 2003, whereas those who started late, or who had repeated a grade, would typically not be expected to have reached high school.

Schooling phase (03) Primary High

Number of children (n=1330) 897 (67.44%) 433 (32.56%) Table 4.4: Breakdown of study sample members by phase of schooling in 2003

Grade repetition

As shown in Table 4.5 below, slightly more than one third of children repeated a grade between 1997 and 2003, while the remainder did not. This figure is similar, though slightly higher than that reported for other work on the Bt20 cohort (Fleisch and Schindler 2009).

Grade repetition between 1997 and 2003

No repetitions One or more repetitions Number of children (n=1240) 778 (62.74%) 462 (37.26%)

Table 4.5: Breakdown of study sample members by whether or not they have repeated at least one grade between 1997 and 2003

4.2.2 Household level variables

Maternal education

The distribution of maternal educational levels is shown in Table 4.6 below.

The largest proportion of mothers have completed some secondary school, while relatively few are have grade 5 education or less, which is equivalent to functional illiteracy. The proportion with post-school education is also low.

89 Table 4.6: Breakdown of study sample by highest level of maternal education attained at the time at which the study sample member was born

Maternal marital status

Slightly over one third of mothers were married at the time of the birth of study sample member, while just less than two thirds were unmarried (see Table 4.7 below).

Maternal marital status in 1990 Married Unmarried Number of children (n=1418) 506 (35.68%) 912 (64.32%) Table 4.7: Breakdown of study sample members by maternal marital status

Household SES: 1997

The grouping of households into quintiles on the basis of SES in 1997 is shown in Table 4.8 below. Due to several clusters of households with similar scores, it was not possible to create completely even quintiles.

Household Table 4.8: Breakdown of study sample by household SES in 1997

90 Household SES: 2003

Similarly, the household SES quintiles for 2003 are also not completely even, as evident in Table 4.9 below. Additionally, the small proportion of sample member for whom SES data is available for 2003 should be noted.

Household Table 4.9: Breakdown of study sample members by household SES in 2003

4.2.3 Community level variables Table 4.10: Breakdown of study sample members by the poverty level of the SAL in which they live

Sub Place poverty

Table 4.11, below, shows the distribution of households across quintiles based on the poverty level of the SP in which they are located.

91 Table 4.11: Breakdown of study sample members by the poverty level of the SP in which they live

Main Place poverty

Due to the small number of MPs represented in the data, with most sample members concentrated in just a few MPs, attempts to create poverty quintiles based on this level of geography were unsuccessful. The creation of tertiles was slightly more successful, and is illustrated in Table 4.12 below, although substantial clustering is still evident.

Table 4.12: Breakdown of study sample members by the poverty level of the MP in which they live