# **Introduction**

Across Latin America, the greatest dropout rates in the education systems occur at upper secondary education (USE). Around one in every three youth in the region do not reach this level at all, and about 45 percent of those that enter do not graduate (Székely and Karver (2014)). These low enrollment, retention and graduation rates from USE are growing concerns. While policy makers prioritized expanding coverage of primary and lower secondary (LS) schooling during most of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, they are now turning to the USE level which, along with the issue of low quality of basic education, seems to be the major educational challenge facing the region at the outset of the 21<sup>st</sup> century.<sup>1</sup> Having large numbers of adolescents out of school has important consequences. First, early dropout limits the skill sets of new generations entering the work force, which affects both current productivity levels and a country’s future capacity for facing later phases of the demographic transition when dependency rates start to rise. In addition, USE age adolescents are exposed to a series of risks that are more difficult to address when populations are out of school.<sup>2</sup> Furthermore, during adolescence an individual’s personality aspects (including planning capacity, organizational skills, and decision making capabilities, among others) are still developing, so exiting the school environment prematurely can hinder their development.<sup>3</sup> Despite the importance of this issue, the literature on the causes behind the relatively low enrollment and high dropout rates in USE in Latin America is not abundant.<sup>4</sup> The literature often either looks at trends in dropout but not the reasons behind it, or delves into the reasons but focuses only on a single country. Related studies with an LA regional perspective include Wolff and de Moura (2000), Cabrol (2002), De Ferranti, et.al (2003), Cuadra and Moreno (2005), Reimers (2006), Behrman, et.al. (2006), Di Gropello (2006), Duryea, Lam, and Levinson (2007), Aedo and Walker (2012), Alfonso, et.al. (2012), Bassi, et.al. (2013), and Székely (2014), all of which analyze schooling trends for USE and other levels, but which do not attempt to explain the dropout phenomenon explicitly, nor the trends observed during the past decades.<sup>5</sup>

> 1 Increased priority is apparent in the official 2021 targets in Upper Secondary attendance rates set by countries in the region (OEI (2010)), as well as UNESCO’s roadmap for education reform (2005). Outside the region, this topic is also a concern, as shown by Heckman and Lafontaine (2010) and Murane (2013) for the United States.

> 2 Risks related to adolescence include issues such as teenage pregnancy, addictions, exposure to violence, and crime, among others. Relevant publications addressing this include Cunningham, et al. (2008), Rodriguez (2010), World Bank (2005, 2012), Duryea, et al. (2003), Heller, et.al. (2013), and Bentaouet Kattan and Székely (2014).

> 3 Duryea, et.al (2003) and Spinks (1993), among others, illustrate this clearly.

> 4 There is considerable international literature on the subject.  Recent work by Murane (2013), for example, analyzes the stagnation in USE graduation rates in the United States and summarizes a large number of relevant studies. The author identifies factors affecting USE school attendance ranging from the supply and quality of services, to access to economic resources, to the family environment at birth and early childhood, to risk exposure, etc.

> 5 Examples of specific country studies are Blinder (1999) and McKenzie (2003) who measure economic contraction’s effect on Secondary enrollment in Mexico; Schady (2004), Funkhouser (1999), and McIntyre and Pencavel (2004) that analyze similar effects for Peru, Costa Rica, and Brazil, respectively; Duryea and Arends-Kuenning (2003) examine labor market opportunities and school attendance at USE entry age in Brazil; Berlinski, et.al. (2008) analyze

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