Structural changes in African households: Female-headed households and Children's educational investments in an imperfect credit market in Africa

Edward Asiedu, Amin Karimu, Abdul Ganiyu Iddrisu

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

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.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)30-42
Number of pages13
JournalStructural Change and Economic Dynamics
Volume68
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Mar 2024

Keywords

  • Affirmative action, Ghana
  • Educational investment
  • Female-headed households
  • Imperfect credit markets
  • Structural change in households

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