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Seasonality, Academic Calendar and School Drop-outs in Developing Countries

Author

Listed:
  • Seiro Ito

    (Institute of Developing Economies)

  • Abu S. Shonchoy

    (Department of Economics, Florida International University)

Abstract
Rural families face tradeoffs when deciding whether to keep children in school or have them work in the ï¬ eld. School calendars can magnify this tradeoff by not accommodating agricultural harvesting cycles within the schedule. We show this misalignment has a signiï¬ cant and sizable effect on school continuation. In Bangladesh, a rise in seasonal labor demand due to the Aman paddy harvesting typically coincides with the yearly ï¬ nal examination of schools. Employing the lunar calendar variation of Ramadan school holidays as a natural experiment framework — that forced schools to re-schedule ï¬ nal examinations to a pre-harvest season in 1999 — and comparing it with a typical year of 2002, we ï¬ nd that annual exams overlapping with major local harvesting period inflate the school dropout by 6.5 to 8.4 percentage points between the agricultural and non-agricultural households. Age-speciï¬ c cohort analysis using a nationally representative household survey also supports this evidence. Exploiting state-level academic calendar variation, we executed a similar analysis for India and found supporting evidence to validate our ï¬ ndings. Our paper suggests the careful design of school calendars in developing countries by adequately addressing local seasonality.

Suggested Citation

  • Seiro Ito & Abu S. Shonchoy, 2020. "Seasonality, Academic Calendar and School Drop-outs in Developing Countries," Working Papers 2013, Florida International University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:fiu:wpaper:2013
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Tomoki Fujii & Christine Ho & Rohan Ray & Abu S. Shonchoy, 2021. "Conditional Cash Transfer, Loss Framing, and SMS Nudges: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment in Bangladesh," Working Papers 2109, Florida International University, Department of Economics.
    2. Momoe Makino & Abu S. Shonchoy & Zaki Wahhaj, 2021. "Early Effects of the COVID-19 Lockdown on Children in Rural Bangladesh," Working Papers 2104, Florida International University, Department of Economics.

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    Keywords

    enrollment; child labor; seasonal labor-demand; school calendar; ramadan; drop-out;
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