Executive Summary: “High School Dropout, Race-Ethnicity and Social Background from the 1970s to the 1990s” by Robert M. Hauser, Devah I. Pager, and Solon J. Simmons

            As the U.S. shifts from heavy-manufacturing to services and knowledge-based industries, workers possessing only a high school degree have had increasing difficulty finding jobs that pay a living wage.  For those who have dropped out of high school, shrinking job opportunities and wages are an even more pressing problem.  In light of this, Hauser, Simmons and Pager turn to the issue of high school dropout and seek to identify and examine its causes.

            Hauser and his co-authors ground their study in data culled from the October Current Population Surveys (CPS) 1972-1998.  These surveys cover 167,400 youths aged 14-24 identified as at risk of high school dropout as rising juniors, seniors and graduates.  

            The main finding of the study is that differences in the social, economic, and family background of white, black, and Hispanic youth account for the pronounced differences among those groups in the chances of high school dropout. Among the social correlates of dropout, age-grade relationships play a central role. That is, youth who are overage for grade are far more likely to drop out than those who progress through school on the normative schedule.

Another key result of this study was the influence of location on rates of high school dropout. Metropolitan areas consistently have higher rates of high school dropout compared with suburban areas. At the same time, when Hauser et. al examine broad effects of region on high school dropout, results are less stratified by race or ethnic category.  Relying on the four census regions of the East, the Midwest, the South and the West, the authors found that students are more likely to leave school early if they live in a region outside the East.