Choice at Sixteen.

The proportion of 16-year-olds in Britain who stay on at school is low by OECD standards. This paper examines the probability of completing education at the minimum legal age using micro data on individuals. Parameter estimates of a reduced-form logit model of the leaving probability are obtained for both boys and girls. The rich data set used allows the separate effects of family, school and ability to be assessed. Family background in the form of class and parental education is shown to have a large effect even when ability and school type are controlled for. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]