Determinants of Participation in Higher Education and Choice of Disciplines

Abstract

The primary focus of this article is to examine the role played by economic, social and demographic characteristics in determining the likelihood of participation in higher education for both rural and urban youth in India. Using data from the National Sample Survey (NSS), we examine how household’s demand for higher education is governed by its social composition, gender-related aspects, economic background and cost of acquisition of education. We also estimate significance of these factors in explaining choice of different stream of studies, for example, Arts, Commerce, Science and Technical Education. Youth belonging to schedule caste (SC) and schedule tribe (ST) background have significantly lower odds of going to a higher educational institution compared to other social groups in rural area. The gender impact in terms of higher education participation is more pronounced for the highest income/expenditure quartile for both urban and rural region. Even after controlling for gender, economic and social identity, educational profile of household head exerts a significant impact on the higher educational attendance. Rising cost of higher education exerts a significant detrimental impact on the odds of participation in higher education. Analysis of choice of individual discipline of higher education reveals that female youth have significantly higher odds of attending a higher education institution for Arts/Humanities course in urban India as compared to her male counterpart. However, for every other stream, that is, Science, Commerce, Medicine, Engineering and other professional courses, there is a strong gender bias against female even after controlling for social and economic background of the household.