Abstract
The large and growing literature on the impact of education is partly due to the unprecedented rise in primary schooling in developing countries. Although increases in education for women are particularly important from a policy perspective in developing economies, causal studies on the non-pecuniary benefits of increased schooling for women are still in their infancy. We analyze the effect of education on the extent of household decision-making among married women in Sierra Leone using a set of household decision-making variables from a nationally representative survey. Controlling for endogeneity of education using an instrumental variables approach, we find that more educated married women are more likely to have the final say in making household decisions. Our findings show that primary education for girls can have an empowering effect in the household.
We thank participants at the 2017 Southern Economic Association (SEA) Conference in Tampa, Florida, the 2018 meetings of Society of the Economics of the Household (SEHO) at the Paris School of Economics, France and three anonymous reviewers for providing helpful comments.
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Cannonier, C., Burke, M.G. (2022). The Impact of Education on Household Decision-Making Among Women in Sierra Leone. In: Wamboye, E.F., Fayissa, B. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Africa’s Economic Sectors. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75556-0_10
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