COVID-19 Crisis, Economic Hardships, and Schooling Outcomes

Abstract

We combine phone-survey data from 2,200 students collected in July-August of 2020 with student-level administrative data from 54 schools in four Northwestern provinces of Cambodia to investigate the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for grade 9 students. These students were particularly vulnerable to dropping out of school prematurely due to the crisis. We find that most students kept studying during the crisis, returned to school to participate in the lower-secondary graduation exam after schools reopened, and transitioned to high school thereafter. However, we also find that students' exposure to the economic downturn had substantial implications: The likelihood that the father experienced income losses due to the crisis is negatively associated with a student's propensity to study during school closure, participation and performance in the final exam, and with the likelihood to transition to high school. In contrast, the likelihood that the mother experienced income losses is positively associated with student studying during the crisis, with participation in the final exam and with transition to high school — potentially because mothers used the time at home to encourage their children to study.

COVID-19 crisis in Cambodia: A dataset containing linked survey and administrative data of ninth-graders in rural areas

“…However, at least in terms of school characteristics, our data are broadly comparable to the average school in rural areas of the country, as discussed in Gehrke et al. [1] .…”

“…The dataset is available in STATA format and in open-source format (CSV), and is complemented by the code to replicate [1] (STATA do-file), as well as the phone-survey questionnaire.…”

“…Third, we calculate the probability of experiencing income losses per sector of occupation, and assign this value to each parent based on her/his initial occupation as described in Gehrke et al. [1] .…”

“…Unique combination of paternal/maternal occupations are categorical variables used to cluster standard errors in Gehrke et al. [1] .…”

Life Science Research Immersion Program Improves STEM-Specific Skills and Science Attitudes among Precollege Students

“…A potential confounding effect on the WI20 student performance was the beginning of the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic during the last 2 weeks of the program, resulting in no formal presentations of students’ science posters. A combination of incomplete experience and pandemic-induced stress may have affected the students’ postassessment performance ( 38 – 40 ). Notably, 13 of the 26 students in WI20 participated in the previous quarter.…”