Analysis of the demographic dividend in school enrollment in Brazil using hierarchic and hierarchic-spatial approaches

Juliana Riani, State Secretariat of Education of Minas Gerais and Universidade de Itaúna

This paper investigates the determinants of the levels attendance in Brazil, combining two educational study traditions: one deals with the demographic dividend and the other the theoretical approach of Educational Production Function. Additionally, this article considers spatial dynamics in the educational analysis, through the construction of an alternative methodology combining spatial and hierarchical models. Two methodologies are used: hierarchical and spatial-hierarchical. The first one incorporates the hierarchic structure of the data and the second deals with spatial autocorrelation and heterogeneity, important as we worked with areal data. The results show that in the elementary level, lower demographic pressure is among the most important contextual factor influencing child school enrolment. However, educational supply is the most relevant areal aspect. The hierarchical-spatial model reveals that the dependency ratio and the additional contextual variables of adjacent cities have an influence on school enrollment when a specific city is considered.