Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/216381 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 13069
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
In this paper, we identify under which conditions and to what extent armed conflicts harm the long-run educational attainment of children in rural Sub-Saharan Africa. By combining 66 rounds of DHS surveys with geo-coded conflict information, our study contextualizes the findings of a series of country-specific case studies on the effects of conflict on education, and provides evidence on the mechanisms through which these effects occur. Our main identification strategy compares educational losses of youth living within the same household, while also controlling for local weather shocks and countrywide dynamics in education. The effects of conflict on education are strongly context dependent. High-intensity conflicts reduce local educational attainment, on average, although this effect becomes insignificant in strong autocracies. By contrast, education is generally unaffected by localized low-intensity conflict. Human capital loss due to conflict is most severely felt in weak states, and in response to non-state based conflicts, highlighting the importance of state capacity in mediating the educational costs of local conflicts.
Subjects: 
education
years of schooling
conflict
Sub-Saharan Africa
JEL: 
I25
D74
O12
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
731.69 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.