The long-term effects of student absence: Evidence from Sweden

Sarah Cattan, Daniel A. Kamhöfer, Martin Karlsson and Therese Nilsson ()

No 383, DICE Discussion Papers from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE)

Abstract: Despite the relatively uncontested importance of promoting school attendance in the policy arena, little evidence exists on the causal effect of school absence on long-run socio-economic outcomes. We address this question by combining historical and administrative records for cohorts of Swedish individuals born in the 1930s. We find that primary school absence significantly reduces contemporaneous academic performance, final educational attainment and labor income throughout the life-cycle. The findings are consistent with a dynamic model of human capital formation, whereby absence causes small immediate learning losses, which cumulate to larger human capital losses over time and lead to worse labor market performance.

Keywords: school absence; educational attainment; long-term effects; register data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C23 I14 I21 I26 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-eur, nep-his and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Journal Article: The Long-Term Effects of Student Absence: Evidence from Sweden (2023)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:dicedp:383

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