Abstract
Classified as the result of an extreme or intense phenomenon on the social system, natural disasters can affect human life in several dimensions - at macroeconomic levels, compromising economic growth, infrastructure, and employment levels; in the microeconomic sphere, affecting the access to basic services, such as human capital formation, earnings and health or nutrition. This research analyzes the impact of natural disasters on students’ tests scores in Portuguese and mathematics, dropout rates, and grade promotion in Brazil. A municipal panel data set was created from 2009 to 2019 using data from the Integrated Disaster Information System (S2ID) of the National Secretariat for Civil Defense and the National Institute of Educational Studies and Research (INEP). A fixed effect model was applied, controlling for municipalities, time and characteristics of students, and schools. Heterogeneity of the disasters are explored, estimating the effects by region (South and Northeast) and nature of the disasters (climatological, hydrological, meteorological). The results show that natural disasters were responsible for children’s decrease in grade promotion and increase in dropout rates in 5th and 9th grade. These results, together with reductions in students’ proficiencies in language and mathematics, were observed for climatological disasters in the Northeast region of Brazil. Meteorological disasters in the Southern region decreased students’ proficiencies. This may serve as a tool to orient public policies to mitigate the problem and better protect society.
Presenters
Ana Lucia KassoufResearcher, Economics, University of Sao Paulo and Partnership for Economic Policy, São Paulo, Brazil
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Human Impacts and Responsibility
KEYWORDS
SCHOOLING, BRAZIL, IMPACT, DISASTERS
