Parental backgrounds of Otago medical students

To investigate the background of medical students admitted to the Otago Medical School (OMS) in terms of their parents' occupations, socioeconomic status and education, and to assess how this has been affected by the introduction of substantial tuition fees.

A questionnaire was used to collect data on the occupations and education of the parents of all successful New Zealand applicants to the OMS between 1987 and 2000. Trends in the data across the years were examined, and the data compared to the wider New Zealand population. Occupational data were also coded against the 1997 New Zealand Socioeconomic Index of Occupational Status.

The distribution of data changed very little from 1987 to 2000. Of 2391 students surveyed, 2353 (98.4%) responded to the questionnaire. Of the respondents, 55.2% had at least one parent with a professional occupation at the time they entered the Medical School, 63.2% had at least one university-educated parent, and 13.1% of students had at least one parent who was a doctor.

In comparison to the wider population, the students surveyed were much more likely to have highly educated, professional parents from higher socioeconomic groups. Although only about one in eight medical students came from medical families, this proportion was much higher than in the wider population. These characteristics changed very little across the 14 years of the study, despite substantial increases in university tuition fees.