Private school fees 'rise faster'
Private school fees have risen three times as fast as the average household income, research suggests.
But the cost of fees is less important to whether a child is privately educated than whether at least one of their parents went to independent school.
The study, by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, looked at why parents opt to educate their children privately, and the costs involved.
It found that between 1992 and 2008 average day school fees have risen by 83%, while average incomes have grown by just 30%.
The average annual fee for day pupils in 2010 is now £10,100, it says.
But the cost is not necessarily putting parents off. The study found that if fees rose by £1,300 it would reduce uptake of private education by around 0.33 percentage points.
A parent's schooling had much more impact on whether a child went to a fee-paying school.
Researcher Luke Sibieta said: "One of the strongest predictors is if one of a child's parents went to private school they are three times more likely to go to private school themselves."
The study added that children who grew up in areas where there were lots of different levels of family income were more likely to be privately educated than children from neighbourhoods where incomes were broadly the same.
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