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Household wealth
Household wealth is frequently seen as an enabler of education. Conceptually, it enables support, materials, spare time, and other factors that might influence a student’s learning. The PILNA programme collected information from students to estimate their level of household wealth. It was unlikely that students would know the monetary value of their household wealth. A list of home possessions and facilities was provided, and students were asked to indicate which of these they had in their home. They could respond with either ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. The list included telephones, TVs, and cars, as well as home facilities, such as electricity, a flushing toilet and tap water.
From this list, a new scale was created for household wealth. Student’s responses to these questions resulted in a score that estimated their level of household wealth. Higher scores on this scale indicated that the student came from a wealthier household. Lower scores on this scale indicated that the student came from a less wealthy household.
The scale was also developed separately for each country participating in PILNA, and scores on this scale were benchmarked against each country’s average wealth. This was done to make comparisons between students from households with above average wealth in a country and students from households with below average wealth. Varying levels of average household wealth across countries in the region meant that a standardised approach to assessing wealth would not be appropriate for regional comparisons.
Household wealth and student performance
Table STT1.5 shows the average student performance in numeracy, reading and writing at year four and year six levels for students from households at or above their country’s average level of wealth and for students from households below their country’s average level of wealth.
When comparing household wealth to student performance, associations were found at both year levels in reading and at level four in numeracy. No associations were found at both year levels in writing or at the year six level in numeracy.
Year six students from wealthier households tended to have higher average performance in reading than year six students from less wealthy households.
Year four students from wealthier households tended to have lower performance in both numeracy and reading compared with year four students from less wealthy households.
What does this mean?
The associations between household wealth and student performance show a mixed picture. Year six students from wealthier households had better performance in one domain, but year four students from wealthier households had worse performance in two domains.
At the regional level, students from wealthier households tended to perform better in all three PILNA domains – numeracy, reading, and writing.
