Unequal Expenditures: Ethnic Differences in Educational Spending

• In Event: 240 - Section on Consumers and Consumption Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 02. Spending and Expenditures

Abstract

Household educational expenditures have important consequences for educational achievement and occupational attainment. This research uses a theoretical framework emphasizing the role of cultural and structural factors to analyze the educational expenditures of two rapidly growing ethnic groups in the U.S.: Chinese and Indian Americans. Chinese and Indian Americans are often labelled “model minorities” due to the fact that they consistently receive higher test score averages and attain higher education than non-Hispanic whites. Using data from Consumer Expenditure Survey (2004-2011), we compare the household educational spending of Chinese and Indian Americans to non-Hispanic whites. Our findings suggest that consistent with past research, Chinese and Indian Americans spend more on educational expenses than non-Hispanic whites. However, results from multivariate models are more nuanced, indicating that Indian Americans spend significantly less than non-Hispanic whites on education when socioeconomic characteristics (e.g., household head education or occupation) are held constant. We find that regardless of which controls are added, the finding that Chinese Americans spend significantly more on education than non-Hispanic whites remains robust.

Authors

• E. Paige Borelli, Duke University

• Raphael Charron-Chenier, Duke University