教育費支出の動機構造の解明にむけて

――教育意識の決定木分析――

抄録

This paper examines the impact of social class and a variety of attitudes regarding society and education on attitudes toward educational expenditures. In Japan, the rapid rise of educational participation rates has been strongly supported by household expenditures. The scale of private funding is very large in comparison with other countries, and not only high income parents, but also low income ones, make expenditures for their children’s education. Therefore, the following question arises: what motivates Japanese people to give education to their children? Previous research on economics and the sociology of education has focused on investment and consumption. However, considering that the motives for educational expenditures are complex and are influenced by a variety of characteristics of parents, including attitudes on society and education, this paper investigates attitudes toward educational expense using data from the 2003 National Survey on Work and Daily Life. In order to identify significant patterns in many variables, decision tree analysis is used as a data mining techniques.

Following a brief introduction of decision tree analysis, the technique is applied to delineate the key features that distinguish between people who are eager to pay their children’s educational expenses and those who are not. First, the data indicate that many people believe that parents should pay for nearly all of their children’s educational costs. Second, decision tree analysis reveals that the most important factor influencing the payment of educational expenses is not the benefit of education, but rather the recognition of educational inequality in contemporary Japanese higher education. People who perceive educational opportunities as being equal are more willing to pay for their children, because they believe that there is stiff competition for educational credentials. Third, investment and consumption are important factors for people who believe there is educational inequality. As a result, the motive for making educational expenditures depends on attitudes toward society and education.

On the other hand, the group that showed most strongly negative attitude is people who believe that educational opportunities are closed by family income and that their own subjective social status is low, and that education does not play a central role for achieving high income and social status. This finding suggests that at present, educational costs are very heavy, and that if the burden of tuition fee and other educational expenses clearly brings an awareness of educational inequalities according to family income, many people will perceive education as being meaningless for them.