# **3.2 Estimating the Relationship between Integration and the Brazilian Environment**

This paper is conceptually interested in investigating what are some of the drivers and barriers to integration. So depending on the availability of data, this paper estimates slightly di↵erent models for each sector of the economy.

## **3.2.1 Education**

Education in Brazil is divided into three levels – basic (educacao infantil), fundamental (Ensino fundamental) and high school (Ensino medio). Education is mandatory for those between the ages of 6 and 17 years, which covers fundamental and high school. Although, Brazil has an gross enrollment rate of in the primary and the secondary school was more than 100% and adult literacy rate was about 93% in 2018, recent World Bank (2019b) report suggests that learning is a major problem with 48% of 10 year olds in Brazil unable to read and understand a simple text although this learning poverty has been declining over last decade. According to its PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) results, Brazil’s performance was grim with approximately 43% of the students appearing to be below level two compared to only 13.4% of the students with similar performance in OECD countries.

To explore access to education, this paper first explores the kind of schools that Venezuelans enroll into or are present and then estimate how school characteristics like teacher student ratio, class-sizes, teacher qualifications and grade demotion, along with the size of the Venezuelan refugees and migrants in the municipality a↵ect integration, measured by the F-Index. We focus on regular schooling from basic education to grade 12.

The below school selection model is estimated as a linear probability model (Ordinary Leastsquares regression) and then as a Probit model<sup>20</sup> to show the robustness of results.

where _Vijz_ is a dummy taking the value 1 if school _i_ in municipality _j_ and province _z_ has at least one Venezuelan student enrolled in the school and zero otherwise. _Sijz_ is a vector of school characteristics involving average class size, excluding Venezuelans, teacher-student ratio, proportion of teachers with undergraduate (college) degree, proportion of teachers with MA degree, gender ratio, proportion of white students, average age, type of school (dummy taking the value of 1 if public school and 0 otherwise), total number of Brazilians in the school, proportions of Brazilian who attend classes, lower than his age equivalents, school amenities and access to public services. School amenities include a dummy which takes a value of 1 if the school has simultaneous access to internet, science labs and computer labs and 0 otherwise, while the access to public services is measured as a dummy taking the value of 1 if the school has simultaneous access to electricity, water, sanitary and garbage collection. _Xjz_ includes municipality level characteristics including log of natural number of the total number of Venezuelans living in the municipality,<sup>21</sup> while _yz_ includes indicator variable representing the province or state level fixed e↵ects.

> 20This estimated Probit model will be used in calculating the inverse Mills ratio for estimating the integration model. This correction term controls for the fact that selection bias of schools which receive Venezuelans.

> 21It should be mentioned that the population data on Venezuelans are not updated regularly.

12