Andrea M. Mühlenweg

The Evolution of the School-Entry Age Effect in a School Tracking System

In Germany, students are streamed at age ten into an academic or non-academic track. We demonstrate that the randomly allocated disadvantage of being born just before as opposed to just after the cutoff date for school entry leads to substantially different schooling experiences. Relatively young students are initially only two-thirds as likely to be assigned to the academic track. The possibility to defer tracking to age 12 does not attenuate school-entry ages effect on track attendance. Some mitigation of the effect occurs only at the second time when educational institutions facilitate track modification when students are about age 16.

Young and Innocent - International Evidence on Age Effects Within Grades on School Victimization in Elementary School

This study examines the impact of childrens age within grade on school victimization in elementary school. Identification of age effects relies on the instrumental variables approach drawing on official school entry age rules based on childrens month of birth. The empirical analysis uses the PIRLS data for 17 countries where such school entry age rules are effectively applied. Possible selection into compliance with official entry rules is taken into account via a control function approach. The study demonstrates that children are causally and significantly harmed by being the youngest within grade. Sub-group analysis reveals that the size of age effects on school victimization tends to be higher for boys than for girls as well as for children with an immigrant background compared to natives. The point estimates suggest that the age effect on school victimization is especially high in countries where there are also high effects on the cognitive outcome variable.

Orphans at Risk in Sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence on Educational and Health Outcomes

In this paper, we examine how orphanhood affects children’s educational and health outcomes in eleven sub-Saharan African countries. Our analysis is based on a comparison of orphans and non-orphaned children living under the same conditions. We also examine the impacts of various family structures and compare social orphans (non-orphaned children not living with a biological parent) to orphans. Using household fixed-effects estimation, we provide evidence that children not living with a biological parent lag behind in education and are more often malnourished and stunted. Educational gaps are particularly evident among orphans and social orphans not living with a mother. The effect of paternal death or absence is rather modest in most countries.

Educational Effects of Early or Later Secondary School Tracking in Germany

This paper examines educational outcomes of pupils selected to secondary school types by different tracking regimes in a German state: Pupils are alternatively streamed after fourth grade or after sixth grade. Regression results indicate that, estimated on the mean, there are no negative effects of later tracking on educational outcomes in the middle of secondary school. Positive effects are observed for pupils with a less favorable family background. Quantile regressions reveal that the estimated effects of later tracking are positive for the lower quantiles but decrease monotonically over the conditional distribution of test scores.

Teaching, Organization, and Personal Problems - Evidence from Reforming Tertiary Education in Germany

Germany has recently made extensive reforms in its tertiary education system. Traditional degrees are being replaced by Bachelor and Master programs. This study examines the question of how the choice of a new Bachelor program as opposed to a traditional degree program has affected first-year students’ satisfaction. Three dimensions of student satisfaction are focused upon: Student satisfaction with teaching, student satisfaction with the organization of the study programs, as well as an indicator for students’ personal problems within the academic context. The selection into the type of program is taken into account as I control for individual performance at secondary school, motivation and family background and try different robustness checks. The main specification includes fixed effects on the level of institutions and subjects. Results robustly point to minor differences between the programs. The outcomes are slightly more favorable for students in the new programs compared to the traditional programs in recent years.

Impacts of parental health shocks on children's non-cognitive skills

We examine how parental health shocks affect children’s non-cognitive skills. Based on a German mother-and-child data base, we draw on significant changes in selfreported parental health as an exogenous source of health variation to identify effects on outcomes for children at ages of three and six years. At the age of six, we observe that maternal health shocks in the previous three years have significant negative effects on children’s behavioral outcomes. The most serious of these maternal health shocks decrease the observed non-cognitive skills up to half a standard deviation. Paternal health does not robustly affect non-cognitive outcomes.