TY - JOUR
T1 - Structural changes in African households
T2 - Female-headed households and Children's educational investments in an imperfect credit market in Africa
AU - Asiedu, Edward
AU - Karimu, Amin
AU - Iddrisu, Abdul Ganiyu
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2023/9/20
Y1 - 2023/9/20
N2 - Female headship of households has increased significantly around the world. This paper establishes a link between gender, income, and children's educational investments in an imperfect credit market. We show using a representative household survey from Ghana that, even though there is a positive correlation between income and educational investments, there are expected and unexpected heterogeneities in income and children's educational investments. We find that, whereas income levels for male-headed households with children 6 to 18 years are over 20% higher, female-headed households tend to invest 31% to 38% more on children's education than male-headed households. In imperfect credit markets, higher educational investments could be taking place at the expense of other household outcomes such as food/leisure. Our empirical results show the need for different interventions for different households. We also show how institutional changes that recognize affirmative action can interact with household-level structural changes.
AB - Female headship of households has increased significantly around the world. This paper establishes a link between gender, income, and children's educational investments in an imperfect credit market. We show using a representative household survey from Ghana that, even though there is a positive correlation between income and educational investments, there are expected and unexpected heterogeneities in income and children's educational investments. We find that, whereas income levels for male-headed households with children 6 to 18 years are over 20% higher, female-headed households tend to invest 31% to 38% more on children's education than male-headed households. In imperfect credit markets, higher educational investments could be taking place at the expense of other household outcomes such as food/leisure. Our empirical results show the need for different interventions for different households. We also show how institutional changes that recognize affirmative action can interact with household-level structural changes.
KW - Female-headed households
KW - Educational investment
KW - Imperfect credit markets
KW - Structural change in households
KW - Affirmative action
KW - Ghana
UR - https://www.open-access.bcu.ac.uk/14875/
U2 - 10.1016/j.strueco.2023.09.008
DO - 10.1016/j.strueco.2023.09.008
M3 - Article
SN - 0954-349X
VL - 68
SP - 30
EP - 42
JO - Structural Change and Economic Dynamics
JF - Structural Change and Economic Dynamics
ER -