Schooling Dynamics in a Low-Income Setting

Lynn Karoly, RAND

This paper examines schooling dynamics using the longitudinal information in the first and second Indonesian Family Life Surveys. Our interest is in how individual and household characteristics, economic resources, and school access and quality affect the age at which children enter school, whether they advance through school grade level by grade level, and whether they continue from one schooling level to the next. We estimate a series models that differ in their focus by the stages of the schooling process: we model age at school entry and grade repetition at the primary level, and grade or level advancement at the junior and senior secondary level. The models include controls for the child's characteristics, family background, local labor market characteristics, and local school infrastructure.