Keeping Children in School

We study household and context determinants of school dropout usingdata for 130,000 children in 363 regions of 30 developing countries using multi-leveldiscrete-time event-history analysis. Most (72%) of the variation in school dropout isdue to household-level factors, with socioeconomic resources (parental education,father’s occupation, and wealth) being most important. Household structure plays a roletoo. Earlier born, non-biological children and children living with one parent drop outmore. Important context factors are educational resources (availability of schools andteachers) and level of development of the region. Interaction analysis reveals that manyeffects of household-level factors depend on context characteristics, stressing theimportance of a situation-specific approach. Results also indicate that the transitionfrom primary to secondary education is a major breaking point in children’s educationalcareers and that extending the duration of primary education might be an effectivestrategy to keep children in school longer