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Background: The association between education and health has been observed globally for a multitude of health measures. Variation in county-level COVID-19 burden in the United States (U.S.) provides an opportunity to identify community pandemic risk factors. We describe the influence of secondary education on county-level COVID-19 cases and deaths in the U.S. Methods: County-level environmental, social, behavioral, economic, political, regulatory, and health characteristics were obtained. Covariates used for modeling were selected from a candidate list through negative binomial stepwise forward selection with backwards elimination, as well as clinical judgement for prediction of COVID-19 cases and deaths. Counterfactual and bootstrap analyses estimated the impact of secondary education on COVID-19 mortality. Findings: High school dropout rate is one of the strongest predictors of COVID-19 cases (IRR 1.13, 95% CI 1.07; 1.18) and deaths (IRR 1.17, 95% CI 1.10; 1.26). Counterfactual analysis reducing the county-level high school dropout rate to the lowest in the nation resulted in a predicted 14.9% decrease in median county COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 (95% CI 6.98%; 22.82%). This hypothetical improvement in secondary education translated to approximately 57,680 preventable deaths throughout 2020 (95% CI: 30,654; 84,705). Interpretation: Adjusting for covariates, secondary education is among the strongest predictors of early county vulnerability to COVID-19 in the U.S. A reduction in high school dropout rate predicted a near 15% decrease in county COVID-19 mortality. Improving secondary education could strengthen the effectiveness of a community’s response to emerging threats such as a pandemic. Funding: None

Conditional Cash transfer (CCT) programs have been shown to have positive effects on a variety of outcomes including education, consumption and health visits, amongst others. We estimate the long-run impacts of the urban version of Familias en Accion, the Colombian CCT program on crime, teenage pregnancy, high school dropout and college enrollment using a Regression Discontinuity design on administrative data. ITT estimates show a reduction on arrest rates of 2.7pp for men and a reduction on teenage pregnancy of 2.3pp for women. High school dropout rates were reduced by 5.8pp and college enrollment was increased by 1.7pp for men.

We investigate the consequences of failing a high-stakes exam in Norwegian high schools. Second-year high school students are randomly assigned to either a locally graded oral exam or a centrally graded written exam. Students assigned to written exams consistently receive lower grades and have a greater probability of failing, particularly in the case of already low-performing students. Because passing the exam is required to obtain a high school diploma, this translates into a reduction in high school graduation rates that remains significant over time, permanently shifting a group of marginal students into dropping out of high school altogether. We show that these marginal students are severely disadvantaged across several dimensions, even more so than dropouts in general. Our analysis of what predicts dropout among these marginal students suggests that effective policies for combating high school dropout should target students exclusively on the basis of poor academic performance, rather than other measures of disadvantage such as socioeconomic status, even though these characteristics are associated with dropout among students in general.

Galamsey operations are tremendously undermining the lands and endangering the livelihoods of farmers and as a result, the general aim of the study was to assess the impact of galamsey operations on agricultural lands and livelihoods of farmers in the Affiena community in the Wassa Amenfi West District of the western region. However, relevant literature was used to review the study in relation to its objectives. The snowball sampling technique was used to find hidden farmers who gave out their lands for galamsey operations. Moreover, the study involved 50 farmers who gave out lands and depended on both primary and secondary sources of data. Importantly, structured interview and observation were used to collect data. Furthermore, descriptive statistical tools such as the frequency and percentage distribution tables were used to summarise socio-demographic profile of farmers through the aid of Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS) computer software but basically, the data analysis was focused on both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The major findings of the study demonstrated that galamsey operations have resulted in uncovered pits, water pollution, school dropout, inadequate farmlands, and farm labours in the area. With reference to the findings, it was recommended that; first, policymakers should pass favourable agricultural policies to encourage farmers not to give out lands for galamsey operations and also attract adequate farm labours. Second, the government should call for strict reclamation of uncovered mining pits and persecute anyone who mines to pollute water bodies in the area. Last, non-governmental organizations should organize social and environmental sensitization crusades in the area to educate farmers and school dropout children about the need to stay away from galamsey.

We study the effect of parental job loss on child school dropout in developing countries. We focus on Palestinian households living in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and having the household head employed in Israel during the Second Intifada (2000-2006). We exploit quarterly variation in conflict intensity across districts in the OPT to instrument for Palestinian workers' job loss in Israel. Our 2SLS results show that parental job loss increases child school dropout probability by 9 percentage points. The effect varies with child and household characteristics. We provide evidence that the effect operates through the job loss-induced reduction in household income.

While the literature has documented negative effects of conflict on educational outcomes, there is little evidence on the effect of conflict termination. We show how the permanent ceasefire declared by FARC’s insurgency during peace negotiations with the Colombian government caused a differential improvement on several educational outcomes in the areas affected by FARC violence prior to the ceasefire. These effects are not explained by peace building and post-war recovery investments, and they are only partially driven by wartime child soldiering. Instead, we find support for other mechanisms such as the post-ceasefire plummeting of victimization and new economic opportunities in treated areas.

High school dropouts are more likely to have children in cities where college share is high, while those who received greater education are less likely to have children in these cities. This pattern is puzzling as cities that attract college graduates have higher cost of living, and can be more expensive to raise children, especially for the least educated households. We provide one compelling explanation for why the less educated households locate in high skilled cities – better education for their children. Using the Census and ACS data from 1980 to 2010, our study finds that children in ages 16 to 24 living with a high school dropout head are more likely be enrolled in school in cities with high share of college graduates. We do not find such relationship for children of parents with higher educational attainment. These results hold after addressing endogeneity and self-selection. Further, by examining PUMAs within MSAs, we find that peer effect provides a strong explanation of why the children of the least educated receive most educational benefit from living in a high skilled city. Our findings suggest that location can have greater impact for the children in households with less resource to support them.

Spanish Abstract: Una de las actividades que se ve mas afectada por la falta de vias de acceso es la educacion. De acuerdo con la Encuesta Nacional de Desercion Escolar (2011), el 35 % de los individuos atribuyen su decision de abandonar el sistema de educacion a la distancia entre su hogar y la institucion. Ante la escasez o ausencia de vias de acceso, los costos de la educacion se incrementan y generan obstaculos para entrar y permanecer en la escuela. Estas barreras, relacionadas con las vias de acceso, son un factor determinante en la permanencia de los estudiantes. Con base en lo anterior, el presente documento evalua el impacto de la infraestructura vial sobre indicadores de permanencia y calidad en la educacion basica y media en Colombia. Utilizando una base de datos tipo corte transversal a nivel municipal y usando como variable instrumental los km de ferrocarriles en los municipios vecinos en el 1949. Se encuentra que mayor densidad vial disminuye la tasa de desercion y aumenta el logro escolar, medido a traves del puntaje estandarizado en la prueba de Estado Colombiano SABER11. Especificamente, los resultados sugieren que un aumento de 100 metros en densidad vial disminuye la desercion en aproximadamente 0.17 puntos porcentuales. Ademas, el estudio evidencia efectos heterogeneos de la infraestructura vial segun zona. Finalmente, se encuentra evidencia de que un aumento de 100 m de vias por Km2 de area aumenta en 0.019 desviaciones el promedio de la prueba SABER 11. English Abstract: One of the activities that is most affected by the lack of access routes is education. According to the National School Dropout Survey (2011), 35% of individuals attribute their decision to leave the education system to the distance between their home and the institution. The scarcity or absence of access roads increases the costs of education and develops obstacles to enter and to stay in the school. These barriers related to the access are a determining factor in the permanence of the students. This study evaluates the impact of road infrastructure on permanence and quality indicators in the basic education in Colombia. Using a cross-sectional database at municipal level and using as an instrumental variable the km of railroads in the neighboring municipalities in 1949. It is found that greater road density decreases the dropout rates and increases school achievement, as measured by the standardized score in the Colombian State test SABER11. Specifically, the results suggest that an increase of 100 meters in road density decreases desertion by approximately 0.17 percentage points. In addition, the study shows heterogeneous effects of road infrastructure according to the zone. Finally, there is evidence that an increase of 100 m of roads per km2 of area increases by 0.019 deviations the average of SABER 11.

Labor market dynamics and the expectations of finding a job are believed to be strong determinants of individuals’ educational decisions. Thus, the academic performance and permanency of students in the school system are closely related to their perceptions of unemployment. The impact of high unemployment rates on schooling decisions may operate through, at least, two effects: a “family” effect, which urges individuals to dropout owing to limited access to educational resources, and a “local labor market” effect that encourages them to remain in school. In this paper we, specifically, analyze the impact of a household’s labor market situation and the effect of local labor unemployment on i) the risk of early school dropout and ii) academic performance, which typically declines before the decision to dropout is taken. These relations are assessed via a set of multilevel linear and logistic regression analyses using PISA 2006, 2009 and 2012 microdata. Results suggest that both parental unemployment and local labor market unemployment increase the risk of school dropout by reducing student academic performance. However, the negative “family” and “local labor market” effects seem to decrease as labor market conditions worsen.

We present the first systematic study on child labor in China. Child labor is not a negligible social phenomenon in China; about 7.74% of children aged from 10 to 15 were working in 2010, and they worked for 6.75 h per day on average, and spent 6.42 h less per day on study than other children. About 90% of child laborers were still in school and combined economic activity with schooling. Our results show that child labor participation is positively associated with school dropout rate. A child living in a rural area is more likely to work. Compared with place of residence, the gender of a child are less important. The educational level of the household head and its interaction with the gender of the household head seem to be unimportant. However, household assets per capita and household involvement in non-agricultural activities are negatively related to the incidence of child labor. A child from a household with more adults is less likely to work. The prevalence of child labor in China exhibits significant regional variations. The child labor incidence is correlated with the development level of each region: the Western region has the highest percentage of child labor, followed by the Eastern and Central regions.

This paper analyzes how electoral incentives affected the performance of a major decentralized conditional cash transfer program intended on reducing school dropout rates among children of poor households in Brazil. We show that while this federal program successfully reduced school dropout by 8 percentage points, the program's impact was 36 percent larger in municipalities governed by mayors who faced reelection possibilities compared to those with lame-duck mayors. First term mayors with good program performance were much more likely to get re-elected. These mayors adopted program implementation practices that were not only more transparent but also associated with better program outcomes.

Does increasing the minimum dropout age reduce juvenile crime rates? Despite popular accounts that link school attendance to keeping youth out of trouble, little systematic research has analyzed the contemporaneous relationship between schooling and juvenile crime. This paper examines the connection between the minimum age at which youth can legally dropout of high school and juvenile arrest rates by exploiting state-level variation in the minimum dropout age. Using county-level arrest data for the United States between 1980 and 2006, a difference-in-difference-in-difference-type empirical strategy compares the arrest behavior over time of various age groups within counties that differ by their state’s minimum dropout age. The evidence suggests that minimum dropout age requirements have a significant and negative effect on property and violent crime arrest rates for individuals aged 16 to 18 years-old, and these estimates are robust to a range of specification checks. The results are consistent with an incapacitation effect; school attendance decreases the time available for criminal activity. A separate analysis of a nationally representative survey of high school students, however, illustrates that crime is potentially displaced from the streets to schools when the minimum dropout age is higher.

We study the impact of increasing the time that the mother spends with her child in the first year of her life. In particular, we examine a reform that increased paid and unpaid maternity leave entitlements in Norway. In response to this reform, maternal leave increased on average by 4 months and family income was unaffected. We find that this increase in maternal time with the child led to a 2.7 percentage points decline in high school dropout rates, going up to 5.2 percentage points for those whose mothers have less than 10 years of education. This effect is especially large for children of mothers who, in the absence of the reform, would take very low levels of unpaid leave. Finally, there is a weak impact on college attendance. The results also suggest that much of the impact of early time with the child is at low levels of maternal education.

The central and controlling image of a school dropout is a poignant version of modern alienation. This paper investigates the inner recesses of Holden’s psyche that is undoubtedly in the midst of an existential crisis. The loner-hero rejects Pencey Prep, a preparatory school, and disgusted with the pseudo-intellectualism he ventures out into the adult world, only to end in a psychiatric centre. Society victims need to be refashioned and reinstated in accordance to the corrective, curative and therapeutic standards. The intention here is to pass the discourse from damage studies to reparation and to suggest the readers to consider the novel as a basic discussion of ailments and amends.

In recent years, Spain has received unprecedented immigration flows. Between 2001 and 2006 the fraction of the population born abroad more than doubled, increasing from 4.8% to 10.8%. For Spanish provinces with above-median inflows (relative to population), immigration increased the high school dropout population by 24%, while only increasing the number of college graduates by 11%. We study the different channels by which regional labor markets have absorbed the large increase in the relative supply of low educated (foreign-born) workers. We identify the exogenous supply shock using historical immigrant settlement patterns by country of origin. Using data from the Labor Force Survey and the decennial Census, we find a large expansion of employment in high immigration regions. Specifically, most industries in high-immigration regions experienced a large increase in the share of low-education employment. We do not find an effect on regions' sectoral specialization. Overall, and perhaps surprisingly, Spanish regions have absorbed immigration flows in the same fashion as US local economies.

In May 1991, 15,000 Ethiopian Jews were brought to Israel in an overnight airlift and sorted in a haphazard and essentially random fashion to absorption centres across the country. This quasi-random assignment produced a natural experiment whereby the initial schooling environment of Ethiopian children can be considered exogenous to their family background and parental decisions. We examine the extent to which the initial elementary school environment affected the high school outcomes of Ethiopian children, using administrative panel data on the educational career of each child in Israel through much of the 1990s. The results show that the early school environment has an important effect on high school dropout and repetition rates and on end-of-high-school matriculation exams. The results are robust to controlling for observable characteristics of the community, suggesting that characteristics of the elementary school itself, such as the quality of instruction and peer effects, are important for high school success.