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Impact of a Severe Drought on Education: More Schooling but Less Learning

Author

Listed:
  • Ardyn Nordstrom
  • Christopher Cotton

    (Queen's University)

Abstract

From October 2015 to April 2016, Southern Africa experienced one of the severest droughts in history. The drought's intensity varied significantly across locations. This provides a natural experiment to estimate the effect of large, negative agricultural shocks. We consider the impact of this shock on children’s educational outcomes using data from rural Zimbabwe. Those who experienced the drought may suffer from decreases in income and food access. This can affect household resource allocation and schooling decisions while exposing individuals to stress and uncertainty. We find the drought increases the probability that students advance in school, a seemingly positive impact, likely due to lower opportunity costs to education. The drought also led to a significant decline in performance on mathematics assessments and leadership attitudes, suggesting stress or other factors associated with a drought more than offset increases in attendance. This highlights the importance of using multiple indicators in education evaluations.

Suggested Citation

  • Ardyn Nordstrom & Christopher Cotton, 2020. "Impact of a Severe Drought on Education: More Schooling but Less Learning," Working Paper 1430, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    • Handle: RePEc:qed:wpaper:1430
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    File URL: https://www.econ.queensu.ca/sites/econ.queensu.ca/files/wpaper/qed_wp_1430.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Benabid Jegaden, Robin & Lemoine, Jade, 2021. "Chocs de revenu et éducation des enfants en présence d’imperfections du marché du crédit et de l’assurance : Mécanismes décisionnels en Ethiopie," SocArXiv 3qrjv, Center for Open Science.
    2. Ardyn Nordstrom, 2021. "Can Interventions Targeting Community Attitudes Improve Education for Marginalized Students? Evidence from a Mixed-Methods Experimental Design in Zimbabwe," Working Paper 1472, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    3. Thomas Tanner & Lucy Mazingi & Darlington Farai Muyambwa, 2022. "Youth, Gender and Climate Resilience: Voices of Adolescent and Young Women in Southern Africa," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-19, July.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    education; droughts; agriculture; economic development; natural experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I25 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Economic Development
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming
    • O13 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Environment; Other Primary Products
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

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