Empty Plates, Empty Seats: Food Insecurity and Student Absence in the US and Across the Globe

December 2024

Since the onset of COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a significant rise in student absenteeism in the US and elsewhere. Meanwhile, food insecurity remains a persistent issue across the globe, including in the US. Food insecurity shapes students’ immediate and wider contexts and may worsen school attendance. Applying ecological systems theory, we examined the relationship between food insecurity and student absence globally. We used multi-level zero-inflated Poisson regression to analyze novel, individual-level data of about half a million students from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2022. We found a universal and important relationship between food insecurity and student absence, which remains robust after accounting for student and school characteristics. Results suggest that the US should prioritize addressing food insecurity due to its higher levels of both food insecurity and student absenteeism compared to many other developed nations. We conclude that food security plays a key role in ensuring equal educational access globally.

Education level

K-12 Education

Topics

Student Learning