Sending Children to College in India: The Influence of Social Capital on this Difficult Path

• In Event: 247 - Regular Session. Social Capital and Social Outcomes

Abstract

In the classic formulations of social capital theory, families employ their social capital resources to enhance other capitals, in particular their human capital investments. Social capital would seem to be especially important in the case of India where in recent years, higher education has been under considerable stress with rising educational demand, inadequate supply, and little parental experience to guide their children’s transition through the education system. We use the 2005 and 2012 waves of the nationally representative India Human Development Survey (IHDS) to show how social networks advantage some families’ chances of their children reaching educational milestones such as secondary school completion and college attendance. The IHDS-I survey measure of a household’s formal sector contacts in the medical field, education, and government predicts their children’s educational achievements by the second wave, seven years later, controlling for the households’ and youths’ initial background.

Authors

• Tyler Wiktor Myroniuk, Brown University

• Reeve Vanneman, University of Maryland

• Sonalde Desai, University of Maryland