Aggregate Shocks and Enrollment Rates over a Decade in Malawi

TL;DR

This study examines how different types of shocks affect child schooling in Malawi over a decade, finding that most shocks negatively impact enrollment, except for specific cases involving girls and boys.

Contribution

The study identifies specific age groups and types of shocks that uniquely affect child enrollment rates in Malawi.

Findings

Most shocks, including climatic ones, negatively affect child enrollment, except for house damage which shows a positive correlation for certain age groups.

Poor crop yield and price shocks have decreased in frequency over the last decade compared to other shocks.

Unemployment, business failure, divorces, and house damage remain persistent shocks affecting child schooling.

Abstract

In this paper we report the impact of shocks of different nature and their impact on child schooling. The study is based on Malawi Longitudinal Study of Families and Health (MLSFH) project, which provide information on seven different types of shocks and along with information on schooling of boys and girls from 2008 to 2019. We found that all shocks climatic nature or otherwise have negative effect on child enrollment except in case of damage to the house substitution effect dominate and we found evidence that girls of 7–12 years of age and boys in 13–17 years of age cohort have positive correlation with this specific shock. We also found that frequency of two shocks i.e., poor crop yield and price shock have significantly deceased as compared to other types of shocks over last 10 years. However, unemployment, business failure, divorces and damages to houses remain quite persistent over last decade. Study support suggest the social protection programs for children to address the vulnerabilities faced by households of rural Malawi.