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Does Access to Secondary Education Affect Primary Schooling? Evidence from India

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  • Mukhopadhyay, Abhiroop

    (Indian Statistical Institute)

  • Sahoo, Soham

    (Indian Institute of Management Bangalore)

Abstract

This paper investigates if better access to secondary education increases enrolment in primary schools among children in the 6-10 age group. Using a household-level longitudinal survey covering 43 villages in a poor state in India, we find support for the hypothesis that better access to secondary education increases enrolment and attendance among children in the primary school-going age group. A 1 km decrease in the distance to the nearest secondary school increases the proportion of children in a household who are enroled in primary school by 6.5 percentage points. These results do not change significantly even after we account for endogenous placement of secondary schools and measurement error issues. Moreover, we find that the effect is consistent with what theory predicts: the marginal effect is larger for poorer households and boys (who are more likely to enter the labour force). Further, using a nationally representative survey for India (National Sample Survey 2007-08), we also provide some suggestive evidence that this effect may be quite widespread. This result gives support to the assertion that if the costs of post primary schooling are too high, as they would be if secondary schools are far away, parents have lesser interest in their children's education even at the primary stage.

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  • Mukhopadhyay, Abhiroop & Sahoo, Soham, 2012. "Does Access to Secondary Education Affect Primary Schooling? Evidence from India," IZA Discussion Papers 6507, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
  • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6507
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    3. Sahoo, Soham & Klasen, Stephan, 2018. "Gender Segregation in Education and Its Implications for Labour Market Outcomes: Evidence from India," IZA Discussion Papers 11660, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Santosh Kumar & Emily A. Dansereau & Christopher J. L. Murray, 2014. "Does distance matter for institutional delivery in rural India?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(33), pages 4091-4103, November.
    5. Kumar, Santosh & Dansereau, Emily & Murray, Chris, 2012. "Does Distance matter for Institutional Delivery in Rural India? An Instrumental Variable Approach," MPRA Paper 45762, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 01 Jan 2013.
    6. Musaddiq, Tareena & Said, Farah, 2023. "Educate the girls: Long run effects of secondary schooling for girls in Pakistan," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
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    8. Upasak Das & Udayan Rathore & Prasenjit Sarkhel, 2020. "Social Diversity and Spread of Pandemic: Evidence from India," Papers 2011.05839, arXiv.org, revised May 2023.
    9. Tista Kundu, 2023. "Inequality of Opportunity in Elementary Level School Education: Evidence from India," Indian Journal of Human Development, , vol. 17(2), pages 253-270, August.
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    11. Upasak Das & Prasenjit Sarkhel & Sania Ashraf, 2022. "Love Thy Neighbour? Perceived Community Abidance and Private Compliance to COVID-19 Norms in India," South Asia Economic Journal, Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka, vol. 23(1), pages 30-51, March.
    12. Soham Sahoo, 2017. "Intra-Household Gender Disparity in School Choice: Evidence from Private Schooling in India," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(10), pages 1714-1730, October.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    post primary schooling; returns to schooling; primary schooling;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education
    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education

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