Improving children's access to primary and secondary education is a strategic goal for many global development agencies and government policymakers. Nevertheless, there is relatively little research examining how changes in rural school supply affect future labor markets. We leverage variation in the timing and location of secondary school construction in Southern Mexico to identify the effects of school supply on labor outcomes. We find that school construction increases expected education for school‐aged children by about 4 years and raises the share of years working in the nonagricultural sector between the ages of 18–22 by 29.8 percentage points. The magnitude of the effects on share of years doing nonagricultural work is smaller for individuals from homes where an indigenous language is spoken. Our findings indicate that rural school construction in less‐developed countries can accelerate the transformation from agricultural to nonagricultural economies, but there may be heterogeneous effects across socioeconomic groups and ethnicities.

中文翻译：

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农村学校入学与农业转型

对于许多全球发展机构和政府决策者来说，改善儿童获得初等和中等教育的机会是一项战略目标。但是，很少有研究调查农村学校供给的变化如何影响未来的劳动力市场。我们利用墨西哥南部中学建设时间和地点的变化，来确定学校供应对劳动成果的影响。我们发现，学校建设使学龄儿童的预期教育时间增加了约4年，并使18-22岁之间在非农业部门工作的年数所占比例提高了29.8个百分点。对于讲母语的家庭个人来说，对从事非农业工作的年限所产生的影响较小。