A Scientific Approach to Addressing Social Issues Using Administrative Data

Abstract

We use linked administrative data on education, health, social services, and crime from British Columbia, Canada, to document the relationship between measures of secondary educational attainment and indicators of poor outcomes later in life. Poor outcomes are seen primarily among high school dropouts. Next, we document the ability of characteristics observed in grade four to predict high school graduation using a simple model that produces a lower bound. It straightforwardly identifies more than one-fifth of future dropouts with reasonable accuracy. Non-cognitive measures (especially social and emotional characteristics) are better predictors of educational attainment than cognitive ones. We discuss the implications of these findings for a scientific approach to developing interventions to prevent poor outcomes later in life.