The aim of this paper is to investigate the determinants of attendance at elementary and secondary schools in Brazil, combining two traditions in educational studies. The first tradition has to do with the demographic dividend and the second with studies on educational determinants based on the theoretical approach of Educational Production Function. This article takes into account spatial dynamics in educational analysis by constructing an alternative methodology that combines spatial and hierarchical models. The main results show that, on the elementary level, lower demographic pressure is among the most important contextual factors that influence enrolment of children in schools. On the other hand, educational supply, represented by the ratio between the number of teachers and the school-age population, is the most important aspect in cities. The hierarchical-spatial model shows that the dependency ratio, together with the additional contextual variables in adjacent cities, has an influence on school enrollment of any given municipality.
Education; educational production function; demographic dividend
