The impact of compulsory primary education law on the educational attainment of children: Evidence from Vietnam

• Published date: 01 March 2024
• Author: Binh Thi Thanh Dang,Trung Xuan Hoang
• Date: 01 March 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/asej.12321

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

The impact of compulsory primary education law on the

educational attainment of children: Evidence from

Vietnam

Binh Thi Thanh Dang

1,2

| Trung Xuan Hoang

1

1

Thuongmai University, Hanoi, Vietnam

2

Graduate School of International Social Science, Yokohama National University, Yokohama, Japan

Correspondence

Binh Thi Thanh Dang, Thuongmai University, 79 Ho Tung Mau, Mai Dich, Cau Giay, Hanoi 10000, Vietnam.

Email: dangbinh@tmu.edu.vn

Funding information

Thuongmai University

Abstract

This study examines the short-term impact of the compulsory primary education law

(CPEL) on the educational attainment of children in Vietnam. This study uses the 1999

Vietnam Population and Housing Census and survival analysis to account for the right-

censoring problem in the educational outcomes of children. The study found that CPEL

reduces the dropout rate of children by 12%. However, the effect is minor, especially

when compared with the impact of family income and parents’education. This finding is

similar to those of other studies, suggesting that in addition to CPEL, other family

income support and parent-oriented policies are crucial to improving children’s educa-

tional attainment.

KEYWORDS

children’s educational attainment, compulsory education, dropout rate, survival analysis

JEL CLASSIFICATION

D04, I28, J13

1|INTRODUCTION

Many studies have indicated the importance of education in enhancing people’s

income and well-being. Education contributes to increasing individuals’wages

and positively affects their health and health-related behaviors (Cutler &

DOI: 10.1111/asej.12321

© 2024 East Asian Economic Association and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.

Received: 4 November 2022; Accepted: 9 February 2024

118 Asian Econ. J. 2024;38:118–147.

wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/asej

Lleras-Muney, 2006), and proenvironmental actions (Tianyu & Meng, 2020).

Additionally, prior research suggests that education helps reduce inequality

(Abdullah et al., 2015) and create a more peaceful society (Bell et al., 2016). In

addition to its effects on individuals, education generates positive social returns

(Moretti, 2004) and has positive intergenerational impacts (Lundborg

et al., 2014). Hence, the United Nations included “quality education”as one of

the 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) and often links education with

other SDGs (Vladimirova and Le Blanc, 2015).

In Vietnam, the Vietnamese government considers education and training,

science and technology as top national policies (Vietnam Communist Party,

1991). The compulsory primary education law (CPEL) came into effect in 1991

as a crucial policy among the government’s efforts to enhance the educational

attainment of Vietnamese people.

Our study contributes to an emerging literature that investigates the effects

of compulsory education in Vietnam. Specifically, a recent study by Cornelissen

and Dang (2022) focused on the long-term impacts of primary expansion educa-

tion policy on individuals’educational attainment, literacy, and labor market

outcomes in Vietnam. They also estimated intergenerational effects on the chil-

dren of parents directly affected by the policy. Similarly, Dang (2018) employed

compulsory primary education as a natural experiment to examine the long-

term effects of education on healthcare service utilization. However, those stud-

ies are silent on the link or mechanism between compulsory education law and

the long-term impacts. This study attempts to fill this gap. We investigate the

short-term impact of compulsory education law in Vietnam.

Second, most of the existing literature focus on educational attainment such

as years of education, literacy, primary school completion, and secondary

school completion. However, studying school dropouts can provide us a new

aspect of the impact of compulsory education law. Indeed, children who drop

out of school often belong to poor or vulnerable households. School dropouts

may miss out on opportunities in all aspects of life, including education,

employment, health, safety, and commerce (Obinna & Ohanian, 2020; Peguero

et al., 2018).

Third, differing from the previous literature, especially from the two studies

of Vietnam (Cornelissen & Dang, 2022; Dang, 2018), which use difference-

in-difference (DID) and regression discontinuity design (RDD) strategies to

study the impact of CPEL, this study exploits a natural experiment and survival

analysis to analyze the impact of this law on the dropout rates of children. The

research utilizes a natural experiment induced by the policy change in compul-

sory education and the child’s birth date to identify the treatment effect in an

“apples-to-apples”comparison manner. The CPEL came into effect in 1991,

and in Vietnam, students typically start primary school in September when they

are 6 years old. In Vietnam, the school age of students is determined by their

birth year. As a result, the cohort born in December 1984 that would have

ASIAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL 119