Childhood aspirations, occupational outcomes and exposure to violence: Evidence from Burundi

Recent evidence points at the importance of childhood aspirations for our understanding of poverty and development. But how are these affected by the exposure to violence? This paper employs a logistic framework to study that question for Burundi, a conflict-affected, fragile state. Using data from a new nationwide survey with a panel component we distinguish between armed violence, domestic violence, violence at school and participation in violence. We find that (i) aspiring a job in the public sector is popular regardless of the type of violence; (ii) Children exposed to armed conflict have higher aspirations, defined as wishing to be employed outside of agriculture. Our results also show that these children, as well as children exposed to domestic violence, have a lower probability to fulfill their aspirations; (iii) children exposed to violence at school or children who perpetrated violence do not aspire to leave agriculture, making that their outcomes are closer to their aspirations, (iv) the differences between aspirations and outcomes for the four types of violence have a strong gender component.