The Effects of the <scp>COVID</scp>‐19 Pandemic on School‐to‐School Transitions. A Study of Lower Secondary School Graduates

ABSTRACT The outbreak of the COVID‐19 pandemic in early 2020 caused serious concern about the potential negative effects on children and young people. In Denmark, policymakers and interest organizations worried that insecurity about the future and the multiple lockdowns of society would harm the well‐being of children and young people and their school‐to‐school transitions. The COVID‐19 pandemic and the ensuing lockdowns of society can be regarded as a naturally occurring experiment. We utilise this abrupt exogenous shock to investigate whether the COVID‐19 pandemic affected the share of Danish 9th‐grade pupils who start an education after the 9th grade. Cohorts graduating from the 9th grade before 2020 were unaffected by the pandemic in their school‐to‐school transitions and constitute a suitable control group to explore the causal effects of the pandemic. To this end, we use registered data with information about the total population of 9th‐grade cohorts from 2018 to 2022. To adjust for the minor observable differences between cohorts, we employ augmented inverse probability weighting (AIPW), taking into account a multitude of covariates relevant for school‐to‐school transitions. We find that the COVID‐19 pandemic reduced the transition rate to education overall, but the largest reduction is in relation to starting upper secondary education. Our results indicate that the pandemic led young people to opt for types of education that entail a more social or recreational aspect before moving on to secondary education. Furthermore, effect sizes vary according to socio‐economic status, and our results suggest increased educational inequality.