Abstract. Early school leaving represents a loss of potential that has effects on both social and economic scale (reduced social cohesion, lower financial incomes, increase of social allocations). Early school leaving has various reasons that can be either social or economic. Due to the average statistics of the 27 countries of the European Union, in 2008 78,5% of the populations of these countries went to school regularly, whereas the same statistics applied for Romania showed an extent of 78,3%. The statistics of early school leaving showed some 14, 9% in the countries of the EU, whereas in Romania this index was higher (15, 9%). Sequel to some analyses we can state that there is a strong relationship between the variables named participation in education and early school leaving; more than that, there is a strong relationship between the extent of school studies completion and the rate of unemployment.

Keywords: degree of participation in education; early school leaving; Pearson’s correlation coefficient.