Effects of Household Income and Parental Absence on Investment in Child Education in Thailand: Evidence from Quantile-on-Quantile Approach

This study estimates the income elasticity of educational expenditure for Thai households, that is, how much Thai households would increase their investment in their children’s education as their income increases. The contribution of this study is to apply the quantile-on-quantile (QQ) method to estimate the elasticities, which allows us to examine the local effect of each household income level on the distribution of educational expenditures. Moreover, we also examine the elasticities separately for households with different parental presence. The results show that Thai households would spend on average 0.75% more on each child’s education for a 1 \(\%\) increase in their income. For the heterogeneity of the income elasticities of educational expenditures, middle-income households are more likely to invest more in their children’s education compared to lower- or higher- income households, regardless of parental presence in the households. With the exception of households where only the mother is present because the father works elsewhere or for other reasons, low-income households have a relatively low income elasticity of educational expenditure. The results of this study allow policymakers to see the potential increase in education investment for different subgroups of households that are policy targets.