The influence of ethnic segregation and school mobility in primary education on high school dropout: evidence from regression discontinuity at a contextual tipping point

Cheng Boon Ong and Kristof De Witte

No 2013-064, MERIT Working Papers from United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT)

Abstract: This paper investigates the influence of ethnic composition and school mobility at the primary school-level on the propensity to drop out of high school. Using rich school and neighbourhood administrative data, we observe that i frequent school movers have a 2.6 times higher likelihood of early school leaving; ii the relationship between the share of nonwestern minority students in primary school and early school leaving is non-linear; and iii the influence of non-western peers on early school leaving is moderated by students own ethnicity. Using polynomial regression and regression discontinuity methods, we observe a contextual tipping point in ethnic peer composition that is linked to a discontinuous break in the predicted probability of school dropout. The conditional probability of school dropoutincreases by 5.4 percent points to 8.0 percent if school stable native Dutch students are enrolled in primary schools that exceed the contextual tipping point of 77.7 percent nonwestern minority students.

Keywords: Analysis of Education; Educational Finance; Demographic Economics; Household Analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I21 I22 J18 R20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-ure
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:unm:unumer:2013064

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