Secondary Education Completion Rate by Income Decile

PNAD/PNADC
Ensino Médio
Conclusão
Line series of secondary education completion rate by income decile.
Published

August 9, 2026

Overview

This figure tracks the share of Brazilians who completed upper-secondary education (Ensino Médio) over time, by household income decile. Because completing upper-secondary school is the main prerequisite for accessing tertiary education, this series provides useful context for the tertiary-access figures elsewhere in this catalog: it shows how much of the gap in higher-education access originates further back, at the level below it.

Methodology

Share of the population who completed upper-secondary education (Ensino Médio), by income decile, computed the same way as the tertiary-access series: within-year, within-source deciles from strictly positive per-capita household income, harmonized across PNAD Anual (through 2015) and PNAD Contínua (2016 onward), with 2000/2010 (census years, no PNAD fielded) and 2020–2021 (pandemic) excluded.

How to Cite

If you use this figure or the pipeline behind it, please cite both the dissertation and this specific analysis. References follow APA 7th edition.

Dissertation (in preparation; the entry will be updated after the defense):

Mançano, T. (2026). Inequality in access to tertiary education in Brazil: Household incomes, reforming policies, and the politics of who gets in (1990s–2020s) [Unpublished master’s thesis]. University of São Paulo.

This figure and pipeline:

Mançano, T. (2026, August 9). Secondary education completion rate by income decile [Figure and reproducible pipeline]. Open Data Analysis. https://mancano-tales.github.io/open-data-analysis/posts/em-conclusao-decil/

In text: (Mançano, 2026) — when citing several analyses from this catalog in the same work, APA distinguishes them as 2026a, 2026b, … in the order they appear in the reference list.

BibTeX:

@mastersthesis{Mancano2026Thesis,
  author = {Man\c{c}ano, Tales},
  title  = {Inequality in Access to Tertiary Education in Brazil: Household
            Incomes, Reforming Policies, and the Politics of Who Gets In
            (1990s--2020s)},
  school = {University of S\~{a}o Paulo},
  year   = {2026},
  type   = {Master's thesis},
  note   = {Unpublished; Graduate Program in Political Science}
}

@misc{Mancano2026_em_conclusao_decil,
  author       = {Man\c{c}ano, Tales},
  title        = {Secondary education completion rate by income decile},
  year         = {2026},
  month        = aug,
  howpublished = {Open Data Analysis, \url{https://mancano-tales.github.io/open-data-analysis/posts/em-conclusao-decil/}},
  note         = {Figure and reproducible pipeline. Source code: \url{https://github.com/mancano-tales/open-data-analysis}, folder posts/em-conclusao-decil/. Accessed YYYY-MM-DD}
}

A permanent version (Git tag + Zenodo DOI) will be linked here once the dissertation is defended; until then, cite the page URL above and add the date you accessed it (source code: https://github.com/mancano-tales/open-data-analysis, folder posts/em-conclusao-decil/).

Pipeline

This figure draws on the PNAD / PNAD Contínua Harmonization, 1992–2025 panel.

Run these scripts in this order, from the project root (each one writes to data-raw/, which the next one reads):

  1. shared-pipeline/pnadc/000_PNADC_Download_Consolidate.R — downloads PNAD Contínua 2012–2025 (1st interview) with PNADcIBGE::get_pnadc() into data-raw/pnadc_raw/ and consolidates it into data-raw/pnadc_consolidado_2012_2025_interview1.rds
  2. shared-pipeline/pnadc/020_PNAD_Anual_Manual_Import_2001_2015.R — downloads the PNAD Anual 2001–2015 microdata from the IBGE FTP into data-raw/pnad_anual_raw/ and imports them into data-raw/harmonizing-br-data/output/PNAD_Anual_2001_2015.parquet
  3. shared-pipeline/pnadc/050_PNAD_Historica_Manual_Import_1992_1999.R — same for PNAD Anual 1992–1999 (PNAD_Anual_1992_1999.parquet)
  4. shared-pipeline/pnadc/035_Splice_Microdados.R — splices PNAD Anual and PNAD Contínua into the harmonized panel — Microdados_Todas_Idades_1992_2025.parquet and Microdados_Jovens_18_24_1992_2025.parquet in data-raw/harmonizing-br-data/output/ (sources shared-pipeline/utils/codigos_curso_pnad.R)
  5. plot.R — reads Microdados_Jovens_18_24_1992_2025.parquet plus data-raw/pnadc_consolidado_2012_2025_interview1.rds (survey design variables for the PNAD Contínua years); writes the figure to output/figures/em-conclusao-decil/ — compare it with this post’s thumbnail.png

All of the upstream steps above are Tier A and are also run, in this same order, by shared-pipeline/build_public_data.R.

Reproducibility

Tier: A

This pipeline uses only public data, accessible via package/API without any credential (PNADcIBGE, censobr, sidrar, ipeadatar). Run the scripts in shared-pipeline/ in numeric order to reconstruct the intermediate data.