# **1.2 Data**

As the main source of data for our investigation, we rely on household surveys, which have been systematically held in Central America over the past three decades.<sup>4</sup> As shown in Appendix Table A.1, the country with the most data is El Salvador, where 19 surveys are available between 1989 and 2013. Panama follows with 17 from 1991 to 2013. For Honduras and Costa Rica, 16 surveys are available for the periods 1989-2012 and 1987-2013, respectively, while for Guatemala and Nicaragua, a more limited set of 9 and 7 surveys exist between the 1990s and 2013.

One important advantage of using household survey data is that different education system structures can be accounted for in order to guarantee comparability in cross-country analysis. A crucial variable for comparability is the official age at which individuals are expected to attend each education level, and the number of grades comprising each level. As illustrated in Appendix Table A.2., most Central American education systems include 12 years of formal schooling between primary and graduating from upper secondary, with entry normally at age 6 and expected exit at age 17, in line with the rest of Latin America. Two exceptions are Guatemala and Nicaragua, where both entry and exit are set one year later (as in Brazil). Having access to the original micro data in household surveys allows adjusting the data accordingly, in order to make accurate comparisons in attendance by level and official schooling ages.

The data also allow internalizing differences in the definition of types of secondary schooling and relating dropout to important individual and household characteristics. In all six countries in Central America, the post-primary and pre-higher education cycle—which we generally label as secondary education (secondary) here—is split into two segments. The first segment of lower secondary (LS) has a typical duration of 3 years, followed by another 3-year segment of US. Apart from allowing for consistent comparisons, relating ages with schooling levels is particularly important for normative reasons. While primary education is already compulsory in Central America, there are differences thereafter. The main one is that LS is also compulsory in Costa Rica, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Panama, as well as Honduras as of 2013, but not in Nicaragua (OEI 2010).<sup>5</sup> Another important advantage is that since household surveys incorporate information on a wide set of personal and household characteristics, it is possible to differentiate school dropout patterns for different population subgroups or family situations. Furthermore, the data incorporate other variables such as labor market conditions that are useful for understanding schooling decisions.

Yet another advantage, which will be illustrated in the following sections, is that household surveys include representative samples of all age groups because they are normally structured around the demographics of each country. This allows us to follow the trajectory of different cohorts over time. The case of El Salvador, where 19 observations are available over a 24-year period, illustrates this. If one identifies all individuals ages 1-5 in the first survey of 1989, it is possible to locate the same group six years later in the 1995 survey, when they are ages 7-11,

> 4 An alternative followed by other studies has been to rely on official administrative records from the schooling system itself. However, these types of data bases do not usually include information of those _not_ attending education services, which are a key component for our analysis.

> 5 Some countries in Latin America with slightly different arrangements are Bolivia, Chile and the Dominican Republic where LS has a 2-year duration, while in Colombia and Peru secondary comprises 5 years and is not divided into two segments.

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