March 2019

IZA DP No. 12235: Refugees and 'Native Flight' from Public to Private Schools

published in: Economics Letters, 2019, 181, 154-159

Native children switch from public to private primary schools in response to increased refugee concentration in the Turkish public education system. 10 percentage-point increase in refugee-to-population ratio generates, on average, 0.16 percentage-point increase in private primary school enrollment. This roughly corresponds to 1 native child switching to private education for every 31.6 refugee children enrolled in public schools — weaker than the typical estimates in the literature.