School Dropout, Adolescent Labor and Family Structures in Mexico

Silvia Elena Giorguli Saucedo, El Colegio de México

This paper has two main goals. First, it documents the characteristics of adolescents’ school attendance and labor status in Mexico. Second, it identifies the influence of family characteristics and organization on adolescents’ schooling and work. Analysis of the link between family type and adolescents’ enrollment helps us understand how the transitions out of school and into the labor force occur during adolescence in Mexico. This work uses information from a 1997 nationally representative survey and multivariate techniques to look at the determinants of adolescent children’s educational and labor status. The analysis focuses on three dimensions related to family characteristics: the child’s corresidence status relative to parents, the mother’s working status, and the presence of extended kin (working or not working) in the household.