Abstract

In many developing countries, ensuring regular school attendance remains a challenge, often due to various socio-economic factors affecting households. In Morocco, social support programs aimed at providing financial and logistical assistance to households with school-aged children have been implemented to mitigate these obstacles and promote consistent school attendance. This study aims to evaluate, firstly, the effectiveness of different forms of social support for education, including the "TAYSSIR" program, "school canteens," "school transportation," "boarding schools or DAR ATTALIB," and the "one million schoolbags" program, in reducing school dropout rates. A secondary objective of this study is to assess the impact of these programs on household education expenditures. Using data from the 2022 Household Living Standards Survey, the application of the Propensity Score Matching (PSM) approach significantly reduced selection bias by balancing the observed covariates between the groups benefiting from the support programs and those not benefiting. Thus, this approach effectively isolated the impact of social support programs on reducing school dropout rates and alleviating household education expenditures.