The Effects of Differential Exposure to COVID-19 on Educational Outcomes in Guatemala
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World Bank, Washington, DC
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This paper studies the effects of
differential exposure to COVID-19 on educational outcomes in
Guatemala. The government adopted a warning index (ranging
from 0 to 10) to classify municipalities by infection rates
in 2020, which was then used by the Ministry of Education in
2021 to establish a “stoplight” system for in-person
instruction. Using administrative panel data for all
students in Guatemala, the study employs a
difference-in-differences strategy that leverages municipal
differences over time in the warning index to estimate the
effects of the pandemic on dropout, promotion, and school
switching. The results show that municipalities with a
higher warning index had significantly larger dropout, lower
promotion rates, and a greater share of students switching
from private to public schools. These effects were more
pronounced during the first year of the pandemic. The
findings show differential effects by the level of
instruction, with greater losses for younger children in
initial and primary education. The results are robust to
specification choice, multiple hypothesis adjustments, and
placebo experiments, suggesting that the pandemic has had
heterogeneous consequences.
Palabras clave
COVID-19 IMPACT ON EDUCATION, EDUCATION, DROPOUT RATE, GRADE PROMOTION DURING PANDEMIC, SCHOOL SWITCHING, COVID IMPACE ON STUDENT LEARNING, GOVERNMENT EDUCATION POLICY, COVID-19 DIFFERENTIAL EXPOSURE