The longer the daily commute to school, the lower the student attendance: evidence from Brazil

Rubens Lopes Pereira Silva (), Raul Silveira Neto () and Diego Firmino Costa Silva ()
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Rubens Lopes Pereira Silva: Federal University of Pernambuco
Raul Silveira Neto: Federal University of Pernambuco
Diego Firmino Costa Silva: Federal Rural University of Pernambuco

The Annals of Regional Science, 2025, vol. 74, issue 3, No 15, 27 pages

Abstract: Abstract School absenteeism hinders the development of important cognitive and non-cognitive skills and behaviors in students. The literature largely ignores, however, the influence of a long journey to school on student absences. An especially serious shortage in the urban context of developing countries with poor transport infrastructure. Using a comprehensive and unique dataset and an instrumental variable strategy, this study provides unique causal evidence for the impact of distance traveled on student absenteeism in Recife, Brazil. The city is an important densely populated urban center in Brazil with significant urban mobility challenges, particularly for low-income residents in peripheral areas. The results reveal a significant effect of the student’s daily commute to school on absenteeism: one additional km on the daily route walking from home to school results in a 22.4% increase in student absences. The evidence is robust to different measures of the length of daily travel to school and empirical modeling and cannot be explained by the spatial sorting of students’ families.

JEL-codes: R21 R41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1007/s00168-025-01410-5

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