IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/labour/v24y2010is1p46-75.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Effect of Availability of School and Distance to School on Children's Time Allocation in Ghana

Author

Listed:
  • Daniela Vuri

Abstract

In this paper we present evidence on the impact of distance to school and school availability on households' decisions concerning time allocation of primary-age children between work, schooling, and household chores activities using data from the Ghana Living Standard Survey 1998–99. Our results indicate that the increased and eased access to school has a well‐defined impact on children's time use. In particular, reducing the distance to primary school encourages children school attendance and reduces children work. Interestingly, the distance to middle school discourages children's work and boosts household chores activities. Moreover, the availability of both primary and middle schools has a positive effect on schooling decisions, and having a primary school nearby discourages household chores activity. Our results are robust to controlling for the endogeneity of school placement and per capita expenditures. We also find that household decisions about children's time use differ by children's sex, suggesting that girls may be differently responsive to policy measures aimed at reducing work and household chores activities and at increasing their school attendance.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniela Vuri, 2010. "The Effect of Availability of School and Distance to School on Children's Time Allocation in Ghana," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 24(s1), pages 46-75, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:labour:v:24:y:2010:i:s1:p:46-75
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/j.1467-9914.2010.00499.x
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Duncan Thomas, 1990. "Intra-Household Resource Allocation: An Inferential Approach," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 25(4), pages 635-664.
    2. Gautam Hazarika & Arjun Bedi, 2003. "Schooling Costs and Child Work in Rural Pakistan," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(5), pages 29-64.
    3. Lavy, Victor, 1996. "School supply constraints and children's educational outcomes in rural Ghana," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 291-314, December.
    4. Eric V. Edmonds & Nina Pavcnik & Petia Topalova, 2010. "Trade Adjustment and Human Capital Investments: Evidence from Indian Tariff Reform," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 42-75, October.
    5. Rosenzweig, Mark R & Evenson, Robert E, 1977. "Fertility, Schooling, and the Economic Contribution of Children in Rural India: An Econometric Analysis," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 45(5), pages 1065-1079, July.
    6. L. Guarcello & S. Lyon & F. Rosati & C. A. Valdivia, 2005. "Towards statistical standards for children’s non economic work: a discussion based on household survey data," UCW Working Paper 33, Understanding Children's Work (UCW Programme).
    7. Duraisamy, P., 2002. "Changes in returns to education in India, 1983-94: by gender, age-cohort and location," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(6), pages 609-622, December.
    8. Hajivassiliou, Vassilis & McFadden, Daniel & Ruud, Paul, 1996. "Simulation of multivariate normal rectangle probabilities and their derivatives theoretical and computational results," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 72(1-2), pages 85-134.
    9. Glewwe, Paul, 1990. "Improving data on poverty in the Third World : the World Bank's Living Standards Measurement Study," Policy Research Working Paper Series 416, The World Bank.
    10. Canagarajah, Sudharshan & Coulombe, Harold, 1997. "Child labor and schooling in Ghana," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1844, The World Bank.
    11. Smith, Richard J & Blundell, Richard W, 1986. "An Exogeneity Test for a Simultaneous Equation Tobit Model with an Application to Labor Supply," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(3), pages 679-685, May.
    12. Ucw, 2003. "Understanding Children's Work in Yemen," UCW Country Studies 3, Understanding Children's Work (UCW Programme).
    13. Behrman, Jere R & Knowles, James C, 1999. "Household Income and Child Schooling in Vietnam," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 13(2), pages 211-256, May.
    14. Ucw, 2003. "Understanding Children's Work in Guatemala," UCW Country Studies 1, Understanding Children's Work (UCW Programme).
    15. Ucw, 2003. "Understanding Children's Work in Nepal," UCW Country Studies 4, Understanding Children's Work (UCW Programme).
    16. Chernichovsky, Dov, 1985. "Socioeconomic and Demographic Aspects of School Enrollment and Attendance in Rural Botswana," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(2), pages 319-332, January.
    17. Handa, Sudhanshu, 2002. "Raising primary school enrolment in developing countries: The relative importance of supply and demand," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 103-128, October.
    18. repec:ilo:ilowps:444424 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Partha Deb & Furio Rosati, 2002. "Determinants of Child Labor and School Attendance: The Role of Household Unobservables," Economics Working Paper Archive at Hunter College 02/9, Hunter College Department of Economics.
    20. Guarcello, Lorenzo. & Lyon, Scott. & Rosati, Furio C., 2005. "Impact of children's work on school attendance and performance a review of school survey evidence from five countries," ILO Working Papers 994444243402676, International Labour Organization.
    21. Orazem, Peter F. & Gunnarsson, Louise Victoria, 2004. "Child Labour, School Attendance And Performance: A Review," Working Papers 18213, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    22. Hazarika, Gautam & Bedi, Arjun S., 2006. "Child Work and Schooling Costs in Rural Northern India," IZA Discussion Papers 2136, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    23. Paul Glewwe & Hanan Jacoby, 1994. "Student Achievement and Schooling Choice in Low-Income Countries: Evidence from Ghana," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 29(3), pages 843-864.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ghulam Abid & Binish Khan & Zeeshan Rafiq & Alia Ahmed, 2015. "Child Trade-Off Theory: A Theoretical Discussion on the Structure, Causes, Consequences and Eradication of Child Labor," Bulletin of Business and Economics (BBE), Research Foundation for Humanity (RFH), vol. 4(1), pages 24-34, March.
    2. Nunoo, Jacob & Taale, Francis & Sebu, Joshua & Adama, Adams Sorekuong Yakubu, 2023. "Influence of teacher absenteeism and school distance on cognitive skills in Ghana," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. F. Blanco, 2007. "Children's work in Angola: an overview," UCW Working Paper 38, Understanding Children's Work (UCW Programme).
    2. Edmonds, Eric V., 2008. "Child Labor," Handbook of Development Economics, in: T. Paul Schultz & John A. Strauss (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 57, pages 3607-3709, Elsevier.
    3. Drusilla K. Brown & Alan V. Deardorff & Robert M. Stern, 2009. "The Effects of Multinational Production on Wages and Working Conditions in Developing Countries," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Globalization And International Trade Policies, chapter 17, pages 623-687, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    4. Paul Schultz, T., 2002. "Why Governments Should Invest More to Educate Girls," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 207-225, February.
    5. Richard Mussa, 2013. "Rural--urban differences in parental spending on children's primary education in Malawi," Development Southern Africa, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(6), pages 789-811, December.
    6. Marshall, Jeffery H., 2011. "School quality signals and attendance in rural Guatemala," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 1445-1455.
    7. Behrman, Jere R., 2010. "Investment in Education Inputs and Incentives," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4883-4975, Elsevier.
    8. Orazem, Peter F. & King, Elizabeth M., 2008. "Schooling in Developing Countries: The Roles of Supply, Demand and Government Policy," Handbook of Development Economics, in: T. Paul Schultz & John A. Strauss (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 55, pages 3475-3559, Elsevier.
    9. Krauss, Alexander, 2017. "Understanding child labour beyond the standard economic assumption of monetary poverty," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 68497, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    10. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2859-2939 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Drusilla K. Brown & Alan V. Deardorff & Robert M Stern, 2001. "Child Labor: Theory, Evidence, and Policy," Working Papers 474, Research Seminar in International Economics, University of Michigan.
    12. Pushkar Maitra, 2003. "Schooling and Educational Attainment: Evidence from Bangladesh," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(2), pages 129-153.
    13. Mukhopadhyay, Abhiroop & Sahoo, Soham, 2016. "Does access to secondary education affect primary schooling? Evidence from India," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 124-142.
    14. Lincove, Jane Arnold, 2009. "Determinants of schooling for boys and girls in Nigeria under a policy of free primary education," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 474-484, August.
    15. Michael A. Clemens, 2004. "The Long Walk to School: International education goals in historical perspective," Development and Comp Systems 0403007, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. W. Nabiddo & B.L. Yawe & F. Wasswa, 2022. "Education attainment and household education expenditure in Uganda: An empirical investigation," Journal of Economic Policy and Management Issues, JEPMI, vol. 1(1), pages 21-49.
    17. VERHEYDEN Bertrand & FAYE Ousmane, 2011. "Fertility and Child Occupation: Theory and Evidence from Senegal," LISER Working Paper Series 2011-59, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER).
    18. Kyle McNabb, 2017. "Exploring regional and gender disparities in Beninese primary school attendance: A multilevel approach," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2017-70, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    19. Eric V. Edmonds & Norbert Schady, 2012. "Poverty Alleviation and Child Labor," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 4(4), pages 100-124, November.
    20. Lincove, Jane Arnold, 2015. "Improving Identification of Demand-Side Obstacles to Schooling: Findings from Revealed and Stated Preference Models in Two SSA Countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 69-83.
    21. Admassie, A. & Bedi, A.S., 2003. "Attending school : two 'Rs' and child work in rural Ethiopia," ISS Working Papers - General Series 19146, International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam (ISS), The Hague.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:labour:v:24:y:2010:i:s1:p:46-75. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/csrotit.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.