This paper contributes to the literature on Relative Risk Aversion theory in two ways: first, by considering that the effect of time preferences may differ according to both children’s gender and social origin; second, by exploring this possibility for different educational outcomes: upper secondary school choices and university enrollment. We use data of the Survey of Household Income and Wealth, which contains questions specifically addressed to capture an individual’s time discounting preference, to further explore the association between time discounting preference and the effect of social origin on educational outcomes in Italy. In line with prior research, we find that time preferences only have a meaningful effect among children of lowly educated parents. But such an effect, in turn, differs by gender: parental time preferences matter more for sons than for daughters of lowly educated parents. This gender effect is found both for upper secondary choices and for entry into higher education.

本文在两个方面对相对风险厌恶理论的文献做出了贡献：首先，考虑到时间偏好的影响可能因儿童的性别和社会出身而异；其次，通过探索不同教育成果的可能性：高中选择和大学入学率。我们使用家庭收入和财富调查的数据，其中包含专门针对捕捉个人时间折扣偏好的问题，以进一步探索时间折扣偏好与社会出身对意大利教育成果的影响之间的关联。与先前的研究一致，我们发现时间偏好只对受教育程度低的父母的孩子产生有意义的影响。但反过来，这种影响因性别而异：父母的时间偏好对儿子来说比对受教育程度低的父母的女儿更重要。这种性别效应在高中选择和进入高等教育方面都存在。