Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/242549 
Year of Publication: 
2017
Series/Report no.: 
Economics Working Paper Series No. 2017/02
Publisher: 
Auckland University of Technology (AUT), Faculty of Business, Economics and Law, Auckland
Abstract: 
We use individual-level administrative data to examine the extent and potential explanations for the poorer academic performance of three ethnic minority groups in their first year of study at a New Zealand university. Substantial differences in course completion rates and letter grades are found for Māori, Pasifika and Asian students relative to their European counterparts. These large and significant gaps persist in the face of alternative definitions of ethnicity and sample restrictions. We use regression analysis and formal decomposition techniques to test whether differences in other personal characteristics, high school backgrounds and university enrollment patterns might account for these ethnic disparities in early academic achievement. We estimate that no more than one-quarter of the relatively poorer performance of Māori and Pasifika students would be eliminated if they had the same relevant observable factors of European students. These substantial unexplained ethnic differences in early academic performance at university raise concerns about appropriate policies to close ethnic gaps in academic achievement at university.
Subjects: 
Higher Education
University Academic Achievement
Ethnic Differences or Disparities
Decomposition Techniques
New Zealand
JEL: 
I23
I24
I28
and
J71
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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