samlet årgang - Økonomisk Institut - Københavns Universitet

THE EFFECT OF LABOUR MARKET CONDITIONS ON HIGHER EDUCATION COMPLETION 93
Table 1. Sample Descriptive Statistics.
Variable Mean Std. Deviation Min Max
1. Individual background variables
Female a 0.5649 0.4958 0 1
Age c 22.7580 2.9274 18 33
Cohabitor Status c 0.3398 0.4736 0 1
Kids less then 2 yrs c 0.0565 0.2308 0 1
Graduation year-HS a 82.8106 2.5466 80 88
Break a 0.507 0.500 0 1
2. Student ability variables
High school a 0.8091 0.3930 0 1
Tech. High school a 0.0360 0.1863 0 1
3. Educational program-specific variables
Medium program b 0.4528 0.4978 0 1
Long program b 0.3552 0.4786 0 1
Time between programs b 0.5649 1.2019 0 11
First program b 0.6104 0.4877 0 1
SU-Grant/10,000 b 2.348 0.605 1.00 3.33
SU-Window b 0.794 0.404 0 1
4. Labour market variables
Annual earnings/10,000 c 3.2397 3.5747 0 25.0511
Expected wage c 4.3858 0.1676 3.9660 4.6068
Expected unempl./100 c 0.3153 0.0711 0.1735 0.4724
a Person-specific, N=693; b Spell-specific, N=901; c Year-specific, N=3064.
VI. Descriptive Statistics
Table 1 provides descriptive statistics at the person-specific, spell-specific and
year-specific levels.
A little more than half the sample is female. Per sample construction, age is between
18 and 33 and the average age of individuals is about 23. About a third of the
sample is cohabiting and 6% have small children in the 0-2 age-group. Approximately
51% take a sabbatical year immediately following high school graduation. These
means are based on all person-year observations. The vast majority (81%) are graduates
from the regular high school (gymnasium) and 4% from technical high schools,
implying that 15% hold a high school equivalent degree. In terms of type of highereducational
program, 45% of observed spells are medium length programs, 35% are
long educational programs and the rest are short higher educational courses. The average
time between spells is about 6-7 months, and 61% of the observed spells are the
first program for the individual. The average grant per educational spell is 23,480
DKK and about 80% of spells fall within the 70 months window. Real annual labour