Additional Year Of Schooling Research Articles

The impacts of secondary education reforms on schooling and income of women and men in the Philippines

In 1988 and 1989, the Philippine government implemented free public and subsidized private secondary schooling through two major policies, namely Republic Act (RA) 6655 and RA 6728. This study investigates the long-run impacts of the two policies on schooling attainment and income using a regression discontinuity design (RDD). It draws data from the Annual Poverty Indicators Survey 2008 and 2011. We present two main findings. First, younger cohorts of women and men, who are policy beneficiaries, have significantly higher educational attainment relative to non-beneficiaries. Second, an additional year of schooling significantly increases individual income of women in the informal sector and men in the formal sector. In brief, our findings suggest that the policies are effective in enhancing schooling attainment, but the downstream impacts appear to have accrued substantially to women employed in the informal sector and men employed in the formal sector.

Effect of Schooling on Anemia and Nutritional Status Among Women: A Natural Experiment in Ethiopia.

This study estimates the effect of length of schooling on anemia and nutritional status and evaluates the cost-effectiveness of primary schooling as an anemia intervention for women of childbearing age in Ethiopia. In 1994-1995, Ethiopia abolished primary school tuition fees and embarked on a large-scale educational investment program, which increased primary school enrollment and retention. An instrumented regression-discontinuity design was used to examine the effect on anemia risk and body mass index (BMI) of an increase in length of schooling resulting from the reforms, as a natural experiment. Anemia and BMI biomarkers and demographic data for 13,984 women were obtained from the 2011 and 2016 Ethiopia Demographic and Health Surveys, with the 2019 Mini Demographic and Health Survey used for robustness checks. Results indicate that each additional year of schooling reduced anemia risk by 3 percentage points (9.2%-11.2% reduction) and increased BMI (weight (kg)/height (m)2) by 0.26-0.42. Primary education was cost-effective-based on World Health Organization cost-effectiveness thresholds-as an anemia intervention, with a cost per anemia case averted of US$1,654. The findings suggest that investment in education reduces anemia risk later in life.

The (non) impact of education on marital dissolution

Despite the relevant role attributed to education on marital outcomes, literature does not show a generalized consensus regarding a positive or negative effect from education on marital decisions. In this paper the impact of education on marriage dissolution is analysed exploiting a change in the length of compulsory education in Mexico in 1993 as an instrument for education. The federal government increased compulsory education from completion of primary school, sixth grade, to completion of secondary school, ninth grade, at a national level. In the first part of the analysis, the probit models reveal that education is significant and negatively related to the probability of marital breakdown. An additional year of education is associated with a decrease between 0.6 and 0.9 percentage points in the probability of marital disruption for the 2002-2012 period. However, the results using the instrumental variables methodology indicate that an additional year of schooling has no effect on the probability of marriage dissolution. This finding demonstrates that the relationship between education and divorce is not causal and suggests that although higher levels of education are an undeniable trait observed in non-broken marriages, it is not education by itself one of the mechanisms leading to better marriage outcomes.

Does Knowledge Empower? Education, Legal Awareness, and Intimate Partner Violence

This article exploits the rollout of the 1997 Basic Education Program in Turkey, a reform that extended compulsory school attendance, to estimate the causal effects of education on women’s awareness of laws designed to reduce gender inequality and prevent domestic violence. The study implements a regression-discontinuity design and finds that the additional years of schooling improved women’s legal awareness. Women exposed to the education reform were more likely to have heard about the new laws and services through newspapers, journals, or books. However, despite these improvements, the study finds no evidence of a significant change in the risk of women experiencing domestic violence or their ability to quit abusive relationships. HIGHLIGHTS Multiple barriers undermine women’s access to the justice system in Turkey. Education reform helped remove one such barrier: women’s legal awareness of their rights. However, legal awareness did not translate into significant changes in incidence of domestic violence. Raising awareness is a necessary first step but not enough to empower women to access to legal institutions.

Does education help combat early marriage? The effect of compulsory schooling laws in China

ABSTRACT This paper studies the relationship between education and early marriage by exploiting the 1986 Compulsory Schooling Laws in China. We find that one additional year of schooling decreases the probability of marriage before age 18 by 1.7% points and increases the age at first marriage by 0.734 years. We examine the role of labour market outcomes, marriage traditions, assortative mating, and peer marriage behaviours. We also find evidence that education decreases fertility outcomes and affects the marriage outcomes of the next generation. This suggests that policies aimed at combating early marriage could start with improving children’s educational attainment.

Equal opportunities for all? Analyzing within-country variation in school effectiveness

BackgroundThe present study addresses the equality of school effectiveness across schools. One central aim of compulsory education is for students to learn equally well at all schools in a country even if these schools differ in terms of student composition. However, measuring equality of learning gains independently from selection effects usually requires longitudinal data. This study suggests a different approach and proposes a new measure for the equality of school effectiveness across schools.MethodsWe applied a two-level regression discontinuity approach to estimate the between-school variation in added-year effects on mathematics and science achievement that result from an additional year of schooling, after controlling for the effects of age and student selection—i.e., between-school differences in achievement levels. We utilized data from a total of 13 samples. These stemmed from Nordic and other European countries, which assessed students from two adjacent grades at the same schools. The samples stemmed from TIMSS 1995 and 2015 and both primary and secondary school levels.ResultsThe main findings indicated that although schools differed in initial achievement levels in all samples, schools in some countries, such as Norway and Cyprus, attained a high degree of equality of school effectiveness—i.e., of the effect of an additional year of schooling. Despite the fact that schools with a more privileged student composition had higher achievement levels than less privileged schools, their school effectiveness did not usually differ significantly. Both age and an additional year of schooling resulted in positive effects on mathematics and science achievement, however, effect sizes differed considerably between the 13 samples.ConclusionsWe discuss the implications of the proposed school effectiveness measure, which is based on a regression discontinuity approach. We conclude that countries, such as Nordic ones, should consider extending their participation in international large-scale assessments with additional grades from the same schools in future cycles. This design would enable a multitude of robust school effectiveness studies in the future.

Estimating additional schooling and lifetime earning obtained from improved linear growth in low- and middle-income countries using the Lives Saved Tool (LiST).

BackgroundPolicymakers seeking to prioritize the use of restricted financial resources need to understand the relative costs and benefits of interventions for improving nutritional status. Improved linear growth can lead to increased education attainment and improved economic productivity in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), though these non-health-related benefits are not reflected in current long-term modelling efforts, including the Lives Saved Tool (LiST). Our objective was to integrate the effects of improved linear growth on non-health related benefit into LiST by estimating subsequent gains in years of schooling and wage earnings. We then estimated the impacts of reaching the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) target for stunting in South Asian countries on lifetime productivity.MethodsIn the first step, we used LiST outputs to estimate the improved linear growth due to scaled-up nutrition interventions and used published estimates to quantify the education gain resulting from an increase in height for age z-score (HAZ). In the second step, we used published country-level estimates on economic returns to schooling to quantify the relative gains in wages that children born today will experience because of their additional education attainment in the future. In the last step, we used country-level data on wages to estimate the net present value of future earnings gained due to early childhood growth improvement per birth cohort.ResultsIf South Asia countries reach the SDG target by 2025, an estimated 8.6 million years of schooling will be obtained by six birth cohorts of 2020 to 2025. These six birth cohorts will also gain an estimated US$64 893 million in the present value term, at a 5% discount rate, in lifetime earnings. India has the largest expected gain in years of schooling (7367 years) and lifetime earnings (US$59 390 million in present value terms, at a 5% discount rate).ConclusionsTwo non-health-related benefits of improved linear growth – additional years of schooling and lifetime earnings – are added in LiST. Together with LiST costing, users can now conduct both cost-effective and benefit-cost analyses. Using both analyses will provide more comprehensive insights into nutrition interventions' relative costs and benefits.

Adult Children's Education and Older Parents' Chronic Illnesses in Aging China.

Although intergenerational transmission from parents to children has been widely studied, less is known about human capital spillover from children to parents. Utilizing nationally representative data on both doctor diagnosis and biomarkers, as well as exploiting variations in the implementation of China's Compulsory Education Law, we examine the effects of adult children's education on the prevalence of chronic cardiovascular illnesses among older parents in China and explore potential mechanisms. Instrumental variable estimates indicate that additional years of schooling among adult children decrease the prevalence of hypertension among older parents, whereas no evidence indicates a significant impact on the prevalence of diabetes among the same group. Sons and daughters differentially impact their mothers and fathers. Compared with fathers, mothers benefit more from adult children's education. Although no significant differences are observed in the effects of sons' and daughters' education in urban China, sons' education is more beneficial for parents' health in rural China. Further analyses show that financial support and health support (e.g., diagnosis and management of chronic illnesses and maintenance of health behaviors) are critical pathways for older parents to benefit from their adult children's education.

The effect of maternal education on parenting and early childhood development: An instrumental variables approach.

Maternal education is often considered an important determinant of children's early development. However, there is little empirical evidence on whether it is maternal education that contributes to better developmental outcomes or other ecological factors that relate to both education and children's development. This study used data on 4,874 mother-child (M age = 47.7 months) dyads from Uganda of the 2016 Demographic and Health Survey to assess the effects of maternal education on parenting and children's development. Taking advantage of a natural experiment with an instrumental variables approach, the study identified positive causal impacts of maternal schooling on children's development. Additional years of schooling also increased maternal engagement in stimulating activities, children's attendance to early childhood education programs, and reduced harsh corporal punishment. A mediation analysis suggested that increases in maternal stimulation and children's attendance to early childhood education programs and reductions in harsh corporal punishment partially explain the effects of maternal education on children's development. The positive impacts of education on parenting and child development indicate the need for more efforts to expand access to education in Uganda and other low- and- middle-income countries, including the abolishment of school fees for primary education. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

More Schooling, More Generous? Estimating the Effect of Education on Intergenerational Transfers†

This paper studies the causal effect of education on intergenerational transfers from/to adult children. Using micro‐data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, we use exogenous variations in parents' schooling induced by China's Great Famine to take account of the endogeneity of education and then estimate the effect of schooling on the probability of receiving/giving transfers from/to adult children. The instrumental variable estimates show that an additional year of schooling has a negative effect on the probability of receiving transfers but a positive effect on the probability of giving transfers at old age. Our results have some implications regarding social security and education policies in aging societies.

The Association Between Educational Attainment and Mortality: Examining Absolute and Relative Effects by Race/Ethnicity.

To determine whether the association between educational attainment and mortality varies by race/ethnicity on the absolute and relative scales, including among understudied races/ethnicities. Data were obtained from the US National Longitudinal Mortality Study (1983-1984). Hazard models for adults aged ≥25 years (n=725,756) with race/ethnicity by educational interaction terms were used to test relative interaction; linear binomial models were used to test for absolute interaction. For the most part, educational gradients in mortality did not differ across race/ethnicity on the multiplicative scale. Conversely, additive interactions appear to be significant. Blacks gained more in terms of reduced mortality rates for each additional year of schooling. The educational gradient in Whites is also notable as the lowest educated Whites have similar absolute numbers of expected deaths as Blacks similarly educated. At higher levels of education, Whites gain substantially in terms of longer longevity. The educational gradient in Asians, Hispanics, and Native Americans is narrower compared to both Whites and Blacks. The association between educational attainment and mortality does not function uniformly across race/ethnicity.

Microeconomic analysis of private returns to education in Egypt: an instrumental variable quantile regression approach

ABSTRACT This study provides updated estimates for the rate of return to an additional year of schooling in Egypt. Additionally, it addresses the major issues of heterogeneous returns and endogeneity of educational attainment. Instrumental variable quantile regression along with other models is employed for that objective. The paper uses the most recent issues of the Harmonized Labor Force Survey and Egypt Labor Market Panel Survey from 2008 to 2018. The findings can be summarized as follows: the returns increase over time up to 2015 then decreases to reach 5.67% in 2018, a number that falls below the global average. Moreover, females’ returns to education are higher than males; the returns are also higher in urban areas compared to rural ones providing an evidence that there exists developmental bias towards urban regions in Egypt. In line with preceding studies, the instrumental variable two-stage least squares estimates are higher than the ordinary least squares’ estimates. Additionally, a confirmation of heterogeneous returns across the wage distribution is presented. The instrumental variable quantile regression estimates exhibit an increasing pattern across the levels of wages. Thus, the less able individuals gain lower marginal profits of education than do the more gifted employees. Indicating complementarity between education and unobservable characteristics and that education may aggravate wage inequality in Egypt. Furthermore, it confirms the presence of the over-education crisis. Moreover, the region-based results in terms of the ability explanation provide that education complements low ability in rural areas while it compensates it in urban ones.

The Impacts of Education on Domestic Violence: Evidence from China

ABSTRACT Exploiting the Compulsory Schooling Law reform in China, this paper investigates the causal impact of education on the likelihood of women experiencing domestic violence from their spouse. The local average treatment effects (LATE) obtained through the instrument variables approach indicate that one additional year of schooling lowers women’s likelihood of experiencing physical and sexual abuse from their spouse by 7.1 and 3.4 percentage points, respectively. Further, we find that the causal impacts of education are more pronounced in the subsample of women who are less educated, women in rural areas, and women in regions with relatively lower human capital endowment prior to the reform. Additionally, we explore various channels and find that change in attitudes towards gender roles may be an important channel explaining the impact of increased female education on lowering domestic violence. We also address the possible bias caused by migration of individuals, and our results remain robust.

Realising the potential human development returns to investing in early and maternal nutrition: The importance of identifying and addressing constraints over the life course.

The benefits of interventions which improve early nutrition are well recognised. These benefits, however, only accrue to the extent that later life circumstances allow. Consequently, in adverse contexts many of the benefits will never be realised, particularly for the most vulnerable, exacerbating inequality. Returns to investment in early nutrition could be improved if we identified contextual factors constraining their realisation and interventions to weaken these. We estimate cost and impact of scaling 10 nutrition interventions for a cohort of South African children born in 2021. We estimate associated declines in malnutrition and mortality, and improvements in years of schooling and future earnings. To examine the role of context over the life-course we estimate benefits with and without additional improvements in school quality and employment opportunities by socio-economic quintile. Scale up reduces national stunting (height for age < = -2SD) rates among children at 24 months by 3.18 percentage points, implying an increase in mean height for age z-score (HAZ) of 0.10, and 53,000 years of additional schooling. Quintile 1 (the poorest) displays the largest decline in stunting, and largest increase in mean HAZ. Estimated total cost of increasing coverage of the interventions for the cohort is US$90 million. The present value of the additional years of schooling is estimated at close to US$2 billion. Cost-benefit ratios suggest the highest return occurs in quintile 5 (1:23). Reducing inequality in school quality closes the gap between quintile 5 and the lower quintiles. If school quality and labour force participation were equal the highest returns are in quintile 1(1:31). An enabling environment is key to maximising human development returns from investing in early nutrition, and to avoid exacerbating existing inequality. Therefore, particularly for children in adverse conditions, it is essential to identify and implement complementary interventions over the life course.

Cognitive achievement production in Madagascar: a value-added model approach

ABSTRACT In this paper, we measure the contribution of an additional year of schooling on skills acquisition for a cohort of young adults in Madagascar. We estimate a value-added model of learning achievement that includes test scores measured at adolescence, thereby reducing the potential for omitted variable bias. We demonstrate that schooling increases cognitive skills among young adults. The value-added of a year of schooling during adolescence is 0.15 to 0.26 standard deviation. Our results show the skills gap widens in adolescence, as students with higher cognitive skills complete more grades, accumulating more skills in their transition to adulthood.

Parental education and inequalities in child mortality: a global systematic review and meta-analysis

SummaryBackgroundThe educational attainment of parents, particularly mothers, has been associated with lower levels of child mortality, yet there is no consensus on the magnitude of this relationship globally. We aimed to estimate the total reductions in under-5 mortality that are associated with increased maternal and paternal education, during distinct age intervals.MethodsThis study is a comprehensive global systematic review and meta-analysis of all existing studies of the effects of parental education on neonatal, infant, and under-5 child mortality, combined with primary analyses of Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data. The literature search of seven databases (CINAHL, Embase, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science) was done between Jan 23 and Feb 8, 2019, and updated on Jan 7, 2021, with no language or publication date restrictions. Teams of independent reviewers assessed each record for its inclusion of individual-level data on parental education and child mortality and excluded articles on the basis of study design and availability of relevant statistics. Full-text screening was done in 15 languages. Data extracted from these studies were combined with primary microdata from the DHS for meta-analyses relating maternal or paternal education with mortality at six age intervals: 0–27 days, 1–11 months, 1–4 years, 0–4 years, 0–11 months, and 1 month to 4 years. Novel mixed-effects meta-regression models were implemented to address heterogeneity in referent and exposure measures among the studies and to adjust for study-level covariates (wealth or income, partner's years of schooling, and sex of the child). This study was registered with PROSPERO (CRD42020141731).FindingsThe systematic review returned 5339 unique records, yielding 186 included studies after exclusions. DHS data were compiled from 114 unique surveys, capturing 3 112 474 livebirths. Data extracted from the systematic review were synthesized together with primary DHS data, for meta-analysis on a total of 300 studies from 92 countries. Both increased maternal and paternal education showed a dose–response relationship linked to reduced under-5 mortality, with maternal education emerging as a stronger predictor. We observed a reduction in under-5 mortality of 31·0% (95% CI 29·0–32·6) for children born to mothers with 12 years of education (ie, completed secondary education) and 17·3% (15·0–18·8) for children born to fathers with 12 years of education, compared with those born to a parent with no education. We also showed that a single additional year of schooling was, on average, associated with a reduction in under-5 mortality of 3·04% (2·82–3·23) for maternal education and 1·57% (1·35–1·72) for paternal education. The association between higher parental education and lower child mortality was significant for both parents at all ages studied and was largest after the first month of life. The meta-analysis framework incorporated uncertainty associated with each individual effect size into the model fitting process, in an effort to decrease the risk of bias introduced by study design and quality.InterpretationTo our knowledge, this study is the first effort to systematically quantify the transgenerational importance of education for child survival at the global level. The results showed that lower maternal and paternal education are both risk factors for child mortality, even after controlling for other markers of family socioeconomic status. This study provides robust evidence for universal quality education as a mechanism to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal target 3.2 of reducing neonatal and child mortality.FundingResearch Council of Norway, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Rockefeller Foundation-Boston University Commission on Social Determinants, Data, and Decision Making (3-D Commission).

Helping when it matters: Optimal time for supporting women’s self‐employment in India

AbstractMotivationGovernments support women’s self‐employment as a means to support women’s empowerment. While they tend to do this by providing financial assistance, skills development and vocational training, they have not paid enough attention to entrepreneurship‐related education in the school curriculum. The article addresses this research and policy gap.PurposeWhile education may lead women to take up self‐employment, anecdotal evidence also suggests that as women continue towards higher education, they tend to opt for wage employment. We investigate whether secondary school is the ideal time to encourage young women to take up self‐employment.Approach and MethodsTo test our hypothesis, we used two rounds of the Indian Human Development Survey (IHDS) dataset as it contains granular information about education and self‐employment at the individual level. We analysed data in univariate and multivariate settings.FindingsOur results indicate that while education is a key dimension for women’s self‐employment earnings, its effects peak at moderate levels of secondary education. We find that the increase in business income for each additional year of schooling between classes 9 and 12 (ages 15 to 18) is more than four times that from classes 1–8 and over twice that beyond class 12. We also find that social factors, such as marriage and infrastructure, have implications for the returns of education to women’s income from running a business.Policy implicationsTo improve women’s economic and social empowerment, policy‐makers should encourage women to attain higher levels of education, since it is a significant predictor of entrepreneurial endeavours. Second, the 9–12 curriculum should focus on making girls and young women more aware of entrepreneurship and encourage them to take up self‐employment.

A Proposal of Spatial Measurement of Peer Effect through Socioeconomic Indices and Unsatisfied Basic Needs

This paper investigates peer effects in the academic achievement of Costa Rican students. Two measures of peer effects are used: (1) a measure of a schools’ average socioeconomic status and (2) a measure of unsatisfied basic needs at district level. The estimation of a three-level hierarchical model allows us to deal with selection bias and unobserved heterogeneity. Results show that socioeconomic peer effect, both at school and district levels, positively and significantly correlates with academic achievement. An increase in one standard deviation in the socioeconomic index has the same effect on academic achievement as an additional year of schooling; two years if the improvement occurs in the index of unsatisfied basic needs. These results are robust for mathematics, reading and science. Results from quantile regression reveal that students with high academic achievement take greater advantages from studying in schools with higher socioeconomic status (mathematics and reading). Meanwhile, students with low academic achievement are the most affected by studying in poorer districts (mathematics and science). These results show the strong feedback between educational and social inequity and constitute a good example of how poverty traps can persist in developing countries.

The Effect of Schooling on Women's Overweight and Obesity: A Natural Experiment in Nigeria.

An extensive social scientific literature has documented the importance of schooling in preventing overweight and obesity among women. However, prior quasi-experimental studies investigating the causal effect of schooling on women's overweight and obesity have focused almost exclusively on high-income countries (HICs). Schooling effects may differ in low- or middle-income countries (LMICs), where information about the harms of being overweight is often sparse and where larger body sizes can be socially valued. Here I evaluate the causal impact of schooling on women's probability of being overweight or obese in an LMIC, Nigeria, using data from the 2003, 2008, and 2013 Demographic Health Surveys. In 1976, the Nigerian government abolished primary school fees and increased funding for primary school construction, creating quasi-random variation in access to primary school according to an individual's age and the number of newly constructed schools in their state of residence. I exploit both sources of variation and use a two-stage instrumental variables approach to estimate the effect of increased schooling on the probability of being overweight or obese. Each additional year of schooling increased the probability of being overweight or obese by 6%, but this effect estimate was not statistically different from zero. This finding differs from the protective effect of schooling documented in several HICs, suggesting that contextual factors play an important role calibrating the influence of additional schooling on overweight or obesity. Furthermore, my findings contrast markedly with the positive correlation between schooling and overweight/obesity identified in previous studies in Nigeria, suggesting that studies failing to account for selection bias overestimate the causal effect of schooling. More robust causal research is needed to examine the effect of schooling on overweight and obesity in LMIC contexts.

Growth in a macro‐Mincer model: Good results with schooling and experience interactions

AbstractWe investigate why macro‐Mincer models have been unable to identify a positive longitudinal effect of schooling on GDP over short periods. We first determine that the best Mincer model of workers’ cross‐sectional earnings includes two schooling‐experience interactions and no independent effect of experience. In the results for this model, about half of the effect of additional schooling occurred in the initial five‐year period and the remaining effect was delayed up to 40 years. We then show that this same lagged pattern successfully explains the effect of schooling on GDP in 98 countries over five‐year intervals during 1975‐2005. Over this period an additional year of schooling raised GDP by 5.8% on average, but by less initially due to the interaction effect with experience. The effects on GDP were consistent with the cumulative effects of schooling on workers’ earnings. We conclude that average years of schooling is an inaccurate measure of a country’s human capital unless the interactive effect with experience is taken into account.