Impact of COVID-19 school closure on the probability of school dropout: evidence on Mexicans elementary schools

Abstract

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Mexico’s government, among other 200 countries and territories, suspended in-person classes and closed schools as a part of a generalized lockdown. School closure adversely affected education even when the government sought alternatives to the traditional system. Mexico doubled the average closed days of the OECD countries, reaching about two scholar cycles without children attending school. Therefore, this study aims to estimate the impact of the period of Covid-19 school closure on the probability of elementary school dropout in the public education system in Aguascalientes, México. The research uses baseline data from the EDNA project and official administrative records to fit a logit model. The study found that school closure explains the 4.5% dropout probability of the cohort of students that began in 2016 elementary education, the most significant explanatory effect. Furthermore, female students present a 1.3% less likelihood of leaving elementary school than male students. In addition, students with parents who reported no level of education are 6.6% more likely to dropout than those with parents who registered high school at their formal education level. Furthermore, students with single parents present a 2.8% more likelihood of school dropout than those with married parents. In conclusion, school closure exacerbated the vulnerability of those groups with specific socioeconomic characteristics that have more probability of school dropout, implicating an expansion of the inequality gap. These results allow dimensioning of the pandemic impact and the extended effects on the education system in Mexico and proposing public policy interventions that could help to mitigate the impact of school dropout due to Covid-19 school closure.