The effects of economic stability on dropout rate across regions, 1989-1999
Date
2003-10
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Abstract
The paper measures the effect of economic stability through Gross Regional Domestic Product (GRDP), unemployment rate per region and regional education budget on the public schools' dropout rate per region for both elementary and high school level. Year serves as a controlling variable. The effects of these are also differentiated between National Capital Region (NCR), Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. GRDP and unemployment rate are insignificant on both regressions for elementary and high school while fiscal budget for education and year are significant variables. Using the three dummy variables---Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao---only year is significant for elementary while year and Mindanao are significant for high school.
Results show that economic stability hardly affects one's decision to drop out and regional budget for education somehow has an effect for both levels. However, year shows a strong effect on the dropout rate of elementary and high school. Year represents the situations and activities for the particular period, This includes the important economic and political happenings and natural events that affected not only a particular region but also the whole archipelago. Also, relative to NCR's, Luzon's, Visayas' and Mindanao's dropout rates for elementary and high school can better represent our model. The farther the area from NCR the higher is the probability to dropout as shown by increasing coefficients from Luzon to Mindanao.
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Keywords
Dropout rate, Economic stability, Regional economic stability, Regional dropout rate, Economic growth