Urban Bias in Development and Educational Attainment in Brazil

Abstract

The main goal of this study is to investigate the role of the urban bias in the Brazilian development on the educational attainment process. Theories of educational inequality and socioeconomic development and modernization are considered to construct the hypotheses. The study is based on a nation-wide probability sample survey (the 1988 PNAD). OLS regression models are estimated to assess the hypotheses, and a cohort strategy is used to investigate trends in the patterns of determinants of the educational attainment process in Brazil. Among the main causal factors analyzed here, we center our investigation on the importance of the difference of having an urban or a rural origin on the educational attainment of individuals. The process of socioeconomic development in most developing countries has been marked by a very strong urban bias. As we show here, this urban bias has a very significant effect (net of many other causal variables) on the educational attainment process in Brazil.