The impact of 9-year compulsory education: quasi-experimental evidence from Taiwan

Abstract

ABSTRACTUsing a regression discontinuity design, this article investigates the causal impacts of 9 year compulsory education on students’ educational attainment and dropout rate by Taiwan Population and Housing Census. The results show that the policy reduces approximately 4 percentage points of the dropout likelihood by age 15 and 2 percentage points of the dropout likelihood by age 18, also increases years of schooling by 0.22. Furthermore, heterogeneous effects are observed across gender and ethnic groups. The policy has larger effects on males and local Taiwanese people than on females and Mainlanders.