Who decides who has to study?

Responsible researcher: Angelo Cruz do Nascimento Varella

Article title: THE SCHOOLING DECISION: FAMILY PREFERENCES, INTERGENERATIONAL CONFLICT, AND MORAL HAZARD IN THE BRAZILIAN FAVELAS

Article authors: Leonardo Bursztyn and Lucas C. Coffman

Location of intervention: Federal District, Brazil

Sample size: 210 families

Sector: Education

Type of Intervention: Experiment on financial transfers

Variable of Main Interest: Family decisions about the education of young people

Evaluation method: Experimental Evaluation (RCT)

Policy Problem

Brazilian education, as in many developing countries, is a great challenge. Despite being mandatory for children and young people from the age of six, education in Brazil is not properly implemented. According to the 2006 National Household Sample Survey (PNAD), carried out by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), when considering the poorest 25% of the population, around 9% of 14-year-olds did not attend school. school. This reality was even worse for young people aged 15, with more than 15% not studying and more than 22% already working.

Although these percentages have been reduced over the last few decades, school dropout is still a considerable problem in the country. A possible explanation is the fact that young people and adults disagree about the importance of studies, so that individuals responsible for the family tend to value education more than their dependents. In these cases, students may miss classes without their family's knowledge, increasing the problem of school attendance without their relatives identifying the problem or being able to take appropriate action. The lack of monitoring and communication mechanisms between educational institutions and responsible families worsens this situation.

Assessment Context

In 2008, despite compulsory education in Brazil, 10% of the population over 15 years of age was still illiterate, with a per capita average of 7.1 years studied, which represents incomplete primary education, in terms of levels of education. schooling. One of the most effective ways to combat this problem and encourage school attendance occurs, in Brazil, through conditional income transfer programs, which help low-income households under the condition of meeting pre-established demands focused on public education. .

One of these programs, Bolsa-Escola, was created in 1995 for the Federal District and implemented nationally in 1998. Later, in 2003, the federal initiative was unified with other public policies in the Bolsa Família Program. Such conditional aid programs are socially relevant as they enable the government to stimulate education and, simultaneously, combat poverty and social inequality. In fact, in Brazil, the implementation of such national actions significantly helped to reduce poverty and illiteracy indicators, increasing school attendance.

Policy Details

This research evaluated Bolsa-Escola, which in 2009 was still administered separately by the Federal District government. To be eligible for the aid, the family's monthly per capita income had to be up to half a minimum wage, just over 230 reais, and all children between 6 and 15 years of age, belonging to the family nucleus, had to meet the , at least 85% of school days, under penalty of suspension of financial aid. If the criteria were met, the person responsible for the students received 120 reais per month for the first child and 30 reais per month for each additional child, still of school age. The support limit was 180 reais per month for each participating family.

Based on the existence of this conditional income transfer program, an experiment was created with the intention of analyzing the existence of conflicts between different generations in low-income families, related to the education of younger people. To this end, between June and July 2009, researchers evaluated 210 families in the Federal District, who benefited from Bolsa-Escola and who only had one young person eligible for the benefit, aged between 13 and 15 years old, since individuals in this age range age were more likely to drop out of school.

Methodology Details

The assessment took place through an interview system, in which families were previously divided into four groups. For each set, different scenarios were presented with alternative options to income transfer programs, encompassing different amounts and receipt conditions. Details are described below:

• Group 1 (Control) – the person responsible chose whether they preferred to receive the aid with the condition that their dependent had to attend 85% of the school days, or whether they preferred to receive the funding unconditionally. The questions were repeated with an increase in values ​​of 5 reais, so that first the conditional value was increased and then the unconditional value. The objective is to find out the value that parents place on their children's education. Young people were informed about their parents' choice;

Example: Do you prefer 120 conditional reais or 120 unconditional reais? And 125 conditional reais to 120 unconditional reais? And 130 to 120? And so on, up to 180, for each of the values.

• Group 2 – the person responsible received the same options as group 1, without the young person being able to know their choice. The objective is to measure conflict between generations;
• Group 3 – the guardian also had the same options as group 1, with the option of receiving free text messages about their dependent's school attendance. The objective is to measure the information control option for those responsible;
• Group 4 - the guardian received the same options as group 1, with the difference that the condition of receipt would be linked to the young person's presence at school, without the need to attend classes. The objective is to observe the value of education compared to the option of taking young people off the streets.

To encourage participation, responsible family members received amounts between 7 and 10 reais and were informed that 5% of participants would be randomly selected to have their decisions implemented.

Results

In group 1, control, 88% of those responsible chose the program with the educational condition and 82% preferred to adopt the conditional system, even when the unconditional value was higher. In this group, those responsible did not mind not receiving up to 37 reais more per month, without being able to receive it, to maintain the school attendance of their dependents, which shows a preference for the education of their young people.

In group 2, when young people did not know about the conditions, only 44% of those responsible preferred conditional transfers, and only 25% preferred to adopt the conditions when the unconditional transfer was greater, which demonstrates that those responsible more value the ability to monitor their dependent and believe that young people do not value education in the same way as they do.

A similar phenomenon occurred in group 3, in which only 35% of relatives preferred to receive conditional transfers and only 29% chose conditions when unconditional transfers were more valuable, since the text messaging system provides control power to guardians.

In group 4, the results demonstrate that those responsible attribute values ​​to being at school beyond education, such as taking young people off the streets, for example. In this group, relatives preferred conditional transfers in 74% of cases. Even when unconditional transfers were greater, 68% of guardians still preferred school attendance conditions.

Public Policy Lessons

The results of the experiment, for the four groups, indicate that guardians and young people tend to disagree on the importance of education, with older people being willing to give up income to have the ability to monitor the behavior of younger people, in terms of refers to education. The study suggests that ways of informing guardians about their young people's school attendance is a useful tool for families to be able to act to keep students in school. In this way, by providing control tools and information on the education of young people to families, public policies can reduce the problem of school dropout, helping those responsible to ensure the education of children and adolescents in the country.

Reference

BURSZTYN, Leonardo; COFFMAN, Lucas C. The schooling decision: Family preferences, intergenerational conflict, and moral danger in the Brazilian favelas. Journal of Political Economy, vol. 120, no. 3, p. 359-397, 2012.