Work

Ethnicity, Women's Empowerment and Decisions about Children's Education in Ghana

Year: 2024

Type: article

Abstract: There is evidence from some low-income countries that women's empowerment is associated with better child health and education outcomes, suggesting that mothers value these outcomes more than fathers do, on average. We hypothesise that this difference will be smaller in matrilineal societies, and using a Ghanaian household survey that includes data on children's education, we find evidence consistent with this distinction between matrilineal and patrilineal cultures. Women's empowerment is higher, on average, in matrilineal households, but this does not explain why their mean educational expenditure is higher, because empowerment in matrilineal households has no significant effect on expenditure. One possible explanation for these findings is cross-cultural heterogeneity in parental preferences: in the matrilineal society, women are more empowered, on average, and more money is spent on children's education, but the first difference is not the cause of the second.

Source: Journal of African Economies

DOI: 10.1093/jae/ejae009

Authors: Ralitza Dimova, David Fielding

Institutions: University of Manchester, University of Otago

Language: English

Topic: Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics

Subfield: Gender Studies

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Gender equality, Reduced inequalities

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $4,770