School Calendar and Suicides: Evidence for Urban Argentina

Abstract

In this work, we examine the impact of the school calendar on suicides in adolescents (10–19 years) of urban areas. To achieve this, we employ a regression discontinuity design based on suicide administrative data, which enables us to leverage the temporal and geographical variability in the start date of the school calendar. The results confirm the existence of a negative impact of the school calendar on adolescent suicide in Argentina. In the days after the beginning of the school year, the number of deaths by suicide is reduced by 35% in relation to the previous days. The mechanism analysis, which exploits the shock of the COVID-19 pandemic, shows that the presence of parents in the household operates as a protective factor that reduces the number of suicides. These results are robust against age placebos (i.e., there are no differences in the number of suicides between older cohorts who presumably have already finished their school years) and temporal placebos (i.e., there are no differences when considering dates other than the actual school start date). These findings suggest that remote work can generate positive externalities for children and have important implications for educational policy in urban areas, where parents spend most of their day outside the household.