Compulsory Schooling and Long-Term Outcomes: Evidence from a Nationwide Education Reform in Mexico

Diego De la Fuente Stevens
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Diego De la Fuente Stevens: University of Sussex

Working Paper Series from Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School

Abstract: This paper examines the long-term and intergenerational impacts of Mexico’s 1993 reform extending compulsory schooling from six to nine years. Exploiting the age-based discontinuity in exposure, the study implements a regression discontinuity and instrumental-variable strategy to estimate the causal effect of education. The reform increased schooling on average, with disproportionately large gains among Indigenous and rural populations. These educational improvements translated into lasting shifts in fertility, child mortality, employment, and internal migration. Intergenerationally, parental schooling gains raised secondary and upper-secondary enrolment among children. By following a single reform across demographic, labour-market, and intergenerational domains, the paper provides a life-course perspective on how expanded schooling reshapes life trajectories. The results highlight the role of compulsory schooling in reducing structural inequalities and demonstrate that, in the context of a large middle-income country, such reforms can generate sustained and intergenerational benefits beyond immediate educational attainment.

Keywords: Education policy; Compulsory schooling; Educational attainment; Intergenerational mobility; Fertility; Labour Markets; Migration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I25 I26 J24 J62 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sus:susewp:0525

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