IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecoedu/v97y2023ics0272775723001346.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Longer schooling with grade retention: The effects of increasing the school leaving age on dropping out and labour market success

Author

Listed:
  • Adamecz, Anna

Abstract

This paper examines the effects of increasing the compulsory school leaving age from 16 to 18 in Hungary using a difference-in-regression-discontinuities design empirical strategy. While the reform increased the length of schooling, it did not decrease the probability of dropping out of secondary school, either on average or among the most at-risk group of Roma ethnic minority students. Due to grade retentions, marginal students were older than their peers and couldn't have reached the final grade of secondary school by age 18 to earn a degree. The reform also did not affect the probability of employment, hours worked, wages and the probability of working in low-skilled occupations at ages 20 and 25. In education systems that allow grade retention, compulsory education should have the explicit goal of keeping students in school until they earn a secondary degree, rather than just until a certain age.

Suggested Citation

  • Adamecz, Anna, 2023. "Longer schooling with grade retention: The effects of increasing the school leaving age on dropping out and labour market success," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:97:y:2023:i:c:s0272775723001346
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2023.102487
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272775723001346
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econedurev.2023.102487?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anna Adamecz-Völgyi & Ágota Scharle, 2020. "Books or babies? The incapacitation effect of schooling on minority women," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 33(4), pages 1219-1261, October.
    2. Jörn-Steffen Pischke & Till von Wachter, 2008. "Zero Returns to Compulsory Schooling in Germany: Evidence and Interpretation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(3), pages 592-598, August.
    3. Anna Adamecz-Völgyi & Dániel Prinz & Ágnes Szabó-Morvai & Sunčica Vujić, 2021. "The Labor Market and Fertility Impacts of Decreasing the Compulsory Schooling Age," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 2140, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    4. Milligan, Kevin & Moretti, Enrico & Oreopoulos, Philip, 2004. "Does education improve citizenship? Evidence from the United States and the United Kingdom," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(9-10), pages 1667-1695, August.
    5. Zoltan Hermann, 2013. "Are you on the right track? The effect of educational tracks on student achievement in upper-secondary education in Hungary," Budapest Working Papers on the Labour Market 1316, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    6. Oosterbeek, Hessel & Webbink, Dinand, 2007. "Wage effects of an extra year of basic vocational education," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 408-419, August.
    7. Sandra E. Black & Paul J. Devereux & Kjell G. Salvanes, 2011. "Too Young to Leave the Nest? The Effects of School Starting Age," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(2), pages 455-467, May.
    8. Gabor Kertesi & Gabor Kezdi, 2011. "The Roma/Non-Roma Test Score Gap in Hungary," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(3), pages 519-525, May.
    9. Alberto Abadie & Susan Athey & Guido W Imbens & Jeffrey M Wooldridge, 2023. "When Should You Adjust Standard Errors for Clustering?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 138(1), pages 1-35.
    10. Paul J. Devereux & Robert A. Hart, 2010. "Forced to be Rich? Returns to Compulsory Schooling in Britain," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 120(549), pages 1345-1364, December.
    11. Lance Lochner & Enrico Moretti, 2004. "The Effect of Education on Crime: Evidence from Prison Inmates, Arrests, and Self-Reports," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(1), pages 155-189, March.
    12. Julien Grenet, 2013. "Is Extending Compulsory Schooling Alone Enough to Raise Earnings? Evidence from French and British Compulsory Schooling Laws," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) halshs-00754526, HAL.
    13. Hong, Kai & Dragan, Kacie & Glied, Sherry, 2019. "Seeing and hearing: The impacts of New York City’s universal pre-kindergarten program on the health of low-income children," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 93-107.
    14. Costas Meghir & Mårten Palme, 2005. "Educational Reform, Ability, and Family Background," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 414-424, March.
    15. Adriana Lleras-Muney, 2005. "The Relationship Between Education and Adult Mortality in the United States," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(1), pages 189-221.
    16. Veronica Grembi & Tommaso Nannicini & Ugo Troiano, 2016. "Do Fiscal Rules Matter?," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 1-30, July.
    17. Julien Grenet, 2013. "Is Extending Compulsory Schooling Alone Enough to Raise Earnings? Evidence from French and British Compulsory Schooling Laws," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 115(1), pages 176-210, January.
    18. Imbens, Guido W. & Lemieux, Thomas, 2008. "Regression discontinuity designs: A guide to practice," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 615-635, February.
    19. Cratty, Dorothyjean, 2012. "Potential for significant reductions in dropout rates: Analysis of an entire 3rd grade state cohort," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 644-662.
    20. D. Mark Anderson, 2014. "In School and Out of Trouble? The Minimum Dropout Age and Juvenile Crime," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 96(2), pages 318-331, May.
    21. Sebastian Calonico & Matias D. Cattaneo & Max H. Farrell & Roc ́ıo Titiunik, 2017. "rdrobust: Software for regression-discontinuity designs," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 17(2), pages 372-404, June.
    22. Colin Green & María Navarro Paniagua, 2012. "Does Raising The School Leaving Age Reduce Teacher Effort? Evidence From A Policy Experiment," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 50(4), pages 1018-1030, October.
    23. Michal Kolesár & Christoph Rothe, 2018. "Inference in Regression Discontinuity Designs with a Discrete Running Variable," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(8), pages 2277-2304, August.
    24. Oreopoulos, Philip, 2007. "Do dropouts drop out too soon? Wealth, health and happiness from compulsory schooling," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(11-12), pages 2213-2229, December.
    25. Lee, David S. & Card, David, 2008. "Regression discontinuity inference with specification error," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 655-674, February.
    26. Cabus, Sofie J. & De Witte, Kristof, 2011. "Does school time matter?—On the impact of compulsory education age on school dropout," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 1384-1398.
    27. Joshua D. Angrist & Alan B. Keueger, 1991. "Does Compulsory School Attendance Affect Schooling and Earnings?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(4), pages 979-1014.
    28. Hahn, Jinyong & Todd, Petra & Van der Klaauw, Wilbert, 2001. "Identification and Estimation of Treatment Effects with a Regression-Discontinuity Design," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(1), pages 201-209, January.
    29. Anderson, D. Mark & Hansen, Benjamin & Walker, Mary Beth, 2013. "The minimum dropout age and student victimization," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 66-74.
    30. Michael Spence, 1973. "Job Market Signaling," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 87(3), pages 355-374.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Adamecz-Völgyi, Anna, 2021. "Is raising the school leaving age enough to decrease dropping out?," GLO Discussion Paper Series 985, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    2. Paul J. Devereux & Robert A. Hart, 2010. "Forced to be Rich? Returns to Compulsory Schooling in Britain," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 120(549), pages 1345-1364, December.
    3. Anna Adamecz-Volgyi, 2018. "Increased Compulsory School Leaving Age Affects Secondary School Track Choice and Increases Dropout Rates in Vocational Training Schools," Budapest Working Papers on the Labour Market 1801, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    4. Tony Beatton & Michael P. Kidd & Matteo Sandi, 2020. "School indiscipline and crime," CEP Discussion Papers dp1727, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    5. de New, Sonja C. & Schurer, Stefanie & Sulzmaier, Dominique, 2021. "Gender differences in the lifecycle benefits of compulsory schooling policies," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    6. Seeun Jung, 2014. "Does Education Affect Risk Aversion?: Evidence from the 1973 British Education Reform," PSE Working Papers halshs-00967229, HAL.
    7. Seeun Jung, 2015. "Does education affect risk aversion? Evidence from the British education reform," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(28), pages 2924-2938, June.
    8. Hofmarcher, Thomas, 2021. "The effect of education on poverty: A European perspective," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    9. Stanislav Avdeev, 2020. "Zero Returns To Higher Education: Evidence From A Natural Experiment," HSE Working papers WP BRP 236/EC/2020, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    10. Wael S. Moussa, 2017. "Closer to the Finish Line? Compulsory Attendance, Grade Attainment, and High School Graduation," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 12(1), pages 28-53, Winter.
    11. Cummins, Neil, 2022. "The Causal Effects of Education on Age at Marriage and Marital Fertility," CEPR Discussion Papers 17398, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Timo Hener & Tanya Wilson, 2018. "Marital Age Gaps and Educational Homogamy – Evidence from a Compulsory Schooling Reform in the UK," ifo Working Paper Series 256, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    13. Meyer, Andrew G., 2017. "The impact of education on political ideology: Evidence from European compulsory education reforms," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 9-23.
    14. Franziska Hampf, 2019. "The Effect of Compulsory Schooling on Skills: Evidence from a Reform in Germany," ifo Working Paper Series 313, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    15. Bahadır Dursun & Resul Cesur, 2016. "Transforming lives: the impact of compulsory schooling on hope and happiness," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 29(3), pages 911-956, July.
    16. Markus Gehrsitz & Morgan C. Williams, "undated". "The Effects of Compulsory Schooling on Health and Hospitalization over the Life Cycle," Working Papers 2303, University of Strathclyde Business School, Department of Economics, revised May 2020.
    17. Julien Grenet, 2013. "Is Extending Compulsory Schooling Alone Enough to Raise Earnings? Evidence from French and British Compulsory Schooling Laws," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 115(1), pages 176-210, January.
    18. Cabus, Sofie J. & De Witte, Kristof, 2011. "Does school time matter?—On the impact of compulsory education age on school dropout," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 1384-1398.
    19. Jörn-Steffen Pischke & Till von Wachter, 2008. "Zero Returns to Compulsory Schooling in Germany: Evidence and Interpretation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(3), pages 592-598, August.
    20. Mario Fiorini & Katrien Stevens, 2021. "Scrutinizing the Monotonicity Assumption in IV and fuzzy RD designs," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 83(6), pages 1475-1526, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Compulsory school leaving age; Differences-in-regression-discontinuities; Dropping out;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:97:y:2023:i:c:s0272775723001346. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/econedurev .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.