Vetenskapsrådet
A more equal school. How the abolishment of half-time schooling in rural primary schools in Sweden affected lifechances and inequality.
During the first half of the 20 century primary school pupils in rural Sweden enjoyed a massive increase in the intensity of schooling as half-time schooling was abolished. The share of all pupils attending primary school only part of the year went from half to zero. The overall aim of this project is to examine how this expansion of primary education shaped later-life socio-economic and mortality outcomes for the exposed individuals as well as for future generations, and how the reduced inequality in access to education impacted inequality in outcomes.
A key strength of the project is the rich data. Birth records will be digitized and linked to historical censuses to generate a data set covering the relevant population. District level information on half-time schooling is collected from archives. Causal inference methods will be used to compare cohorts in districts that have introduced full-time a schooling to cohorts in districts yet to make such changes. The team has expertise in
both the field of study and relevant methods for digitization, record linkage, and data
analysis.
The project will generate knowledge on how one of the largest changes in the educational system affected the Swedish society, but also general insights on the returns to schooling by providing evidence from a school reform of this size. It will also provide rare evidence from the early school period, and on how the effect of primary schooling depends on the possibilities for further studies.