Can Neighbourhoods Change the Decisions of Youth on the Margins of University Participation?

This paper uses the Youth in Transition Survey (YITS) to estimate the relationship between neighbourhoods and university participation among Canadian youth. Neighbourhood quality is proxied by the fraction of neighbourhood adults with a Bachelor's degree. The estimated effect is identified using neighbourhood variation within high schools. The paper also tests whether the effects differ by family background and children’s reading skills. Neighbourhoods do not affect university participation among youth drawn from the tails of the socio-economic distribution. Neighbourhoods have the largest effect on youth drawn from the middle of the socio-economic distribution who also have above median reading skills.