Ministerio de Desarrollo Social

This paper examines whether parental education, race, cognitive and non-cognitive abilities, influence individual’s schooling progression in Uruguay. By accounting for the dynamics of the child’s educational path through a sequential probability model I analyze the influence of parental traits at different schooling stages. Thus, this analysis gives a more complete picture of how inequality of education attainment came about. The results show different effects of parental background, cognitive and noncognitive abilities in different stages of the educational path. In line with previous studies, I find that early child’s life cycle is a sensitive period in the formation of cognitive skills with persistent effects across the education schooling transitions. Noncognitive ability is seen to be more malleable at later stages. This, in turn, call for different interventions in different periods of the individual’s life cycle.