Cognitive development and educational attainment in a drought prone - PDF document

Cognitive development and educational attainment in a drought prone region: Evidence from Wajir, Kenya John A. Maluccio, 1 Laura Nubler, 1,2 and Karen Austrian 3 1 Middlebury College; 2 St Andrews University; 3 Population Council, Kenya Preliminary Draft September 29, 2017 Abstract: There is growing evidence that early life conditions are important for outcomes during adolescence including cognitive development and education. Economic conditions at the time children enter school also can be important for such outcomes. In low-income pastoral settings, where rainfall patterns influence household, and consequently child outcomes, programs are often implemented to mitigate the potential effects of rainfall shocks. One such program in Northern Kenya is the Hunger Safety Net Program (HSNP). We use historical rainfall patterns as exogenous shocks to 1) examine their effects at different ages on a broad set of children’s cognitive and educational outcomes and 2) explore whether any of these effects are mitigated by HSNP. Using a cluster random sample of over 2000 girls collected in Wajir County, combined with historical rainfall and HSNP program delivery data at the cluster level, preliminary findings indicate that indeed, rainfall shocks have a negative effect on girls’ cognitive develop ment and educational attainment. However, living in an area receiving the HSNP cash benefits mitigates the deleterious effects of the drought on girls’ education al attainment. Key words : cognitive development; achievement; adolescent girls, schooling; drought; Hunger Safety Net Program, Kenya Acknowledgments : We thank Marcos Barrozo Filho for excellent GIS research assistance and preparation of maps and Mohamed Hussein for additional research assistance in preparation of the data. All remaining errors are our own. Funding : This research has been funded by UK aid from the UK government. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the UK government’s off icial policies. 1

I. Introduction I nvestment in women’s education and the development of their human capital is a highly important factor in a country’s economic and social advancement. Development Economist Jejeebhoy states that “at the national level, educating women results in improved productivity, income, and economic development, as well as a better quality of life, notably a healthier and better n ourished population” (Jejeebhoy, 1995). Nevertheless, a family’s investment in a girl’s education often remains low as parents expect insufficient returns for their investment (Alderman & King, 1998). In countries where women’s educational and economic opportunities are limited, the advancement of women is an integral factor in developing and accumulating human capital, generating economic activity and transitioning to more advanced stages of industrialization (Jejeebhoy, 1995). Many cultural, social, environmental and financial factors may contribute to low educational attainment among girls and women, and literature suggests that there are certain periods in a child’s early deve lopment where these factors are important determinants of its cognitive abilities, educational attainment and professional advancement later in life (Currie & Almond, 2011). In sub-Saharan African communities, many of which rely heavily on rain fed agriculture, droughts can act as a significant, multi- faceted shock disrupting a girl’s development through a multitude of financial and environmental pathways. The effects of drought on early childhood development and health have been studied extensively in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Latin-America, where a lack of rainfall has been linked to an increase in malnutrition and civil conflict, and a decrease in childhood health indicators and cognitive attainment (Barham, Macours, & Maluccio, 2013; Miguel, Satyanath, & Sergenti, 2004; Molina Millán, 2014). However, the effect of shocks in later childhood and adolescence on educational progression and attainment has not been investigated to the same extent. Research shows that drought shocks can affect physical and cognitive development of children in utero and throughout early childhood (Barham et al., 2013; Hoddinott & Kinsey, 2001). These effects may be exacerbated as a variety of social, economic and cultural barriers further limit a girl’s development and educational attainment. Among others, early marriage and child - bearing, gender expectations, low prioritization of women’s education and financial limitatio ns pose a significant threat to the development of adolescent girls, and many of these factors become exacerbated during times of drought (Schroeder, 1987). Children’s high vulnerability to the wide- 2

reaching impacts of drought shocks are great cause for concern, as meteorological models predict that, as global temperatures continue to rise, droughts and other extreme weather events will increase across most of the African continent. This puts populations that are already vulnerable to the impacts of drought at an increased risk of cognitive and educational losses (IPCC, 2014). In order to protect a girl’s cognitive development and education, thereby generating benefits not only for the girls but also the national economy, it may be necessary to prioritize scarce aid resources by designing interventions that efficiently target the age groups most vulnerable to drought or other shocks. This research paper aims to determine at which ages throughout childhood girls are most vulnerable to the impacts of a drought shock affecting their cognitive development and educational outcomes by investigating a sample of adolescent girls and their households in the rural, highly underdeveloped Wajir County in Kenya. We find evidence that a drought shock during the early childhood development period and during the school start period around the age of 7 leads to lower school enrollment, slower educational progression, and reduced cognitive and academic abilities in my sample. In addition, we seek to understand if a means-tested unconditional cash transfer being administered in Wajir during the drought shocks mitigated these effects. We also find evidence that the social safety next program was able to mitigate the effects of the drought on education and cognitive outcomes. This research will add to the evidence base about the importance of early life and school transition years for a girl’s development, w ill inform interventions for girls susceptible to these sorts of shocks, and may help prevent the serious economic and social costs associated with the loss of cognitive capacities and human capital development (Currie & Almond, 2011). II. Background A. Climate change and the macro-level effects of drought The effects of rainfall shocks and droughts may pose a serious challenge in the future. Climate models project with high confidence that precipitation and soil moisture will decrease in most of the African continent and several other regions as a result of progressing global warming 3

and climate change over the next 50 years, but project, albeit with low confidence, an increase in rainfall in Eastern Africa (Dai, 2013; IPCC, 2014). Nevertheless, rainfall in Eastern Africa is still expected to decrease March through May which may adversely affect crop yields of maize, millet, sorghum and soy, as well as most legumes, some vegetables and other staple crops maturing and ripening during this period (FAO, 2017; IPCC, 2014). This also makes Eastern Africa prone to intermittent droughts, food shortages and malnutrition, even if this effect may be more pronounced in Southern and Western Africa (IPCC, 2014). Since rainfall is highly exogenous, a drought provides an exogenous shock, and any correlation observed between rainfall and cognitive and educational outcomes is caused by the indirect effects of the shock operating through economic and political conditions (Miguel et al., 2004). There are a multitude of pathways through which a drought shock causes economic and political shocks that can disrupt cognitive development and education. In sub-Saharan Africa, only 4% of crop land is irrigated, and the well-being of these economies is highly dependent on rain- fed agriculture, with 27% of GDP and 62% of employment coming from the agricultural sector (Bank, 2017). Therefore, personal and national income in a given year may vary significantly with crop yields and the success of other agricultural operations (Miguel et al., 2004). In Kenya, 30.3% of GDP comes from agriculture and only 0.38 % of agricultural land is irrigated, which suggests that the country would very vulnerable to the effects of weather shocks (Bank, 2017; FAO, 2017). Using precipitation to instrument for economic growth in 41 African countries, Miguel et al. (2004) found a strong relationship between rainfall shocks and GDP. The first-stage regression results show that a 10% decrease in rainfall to the previous year was consistently and significantly associated with a 0.5 percentage point decrease in the income growth rate in the given year, and a 0.03 percentage point decrease in the following year. The second stage regression also finds some evidence that a higher income growth rate reduces the incidence of civil conflict in the given and the subsequent year. Dercon et al. (2005), studying several Ethiopian villages between 1999 and 2004, found that households who experienced a drought shock in the previous 3-5 years saw a 13% decrease in household consumption, and those who experienced a shock in the previous 2 years saw a 17% decrease in household consumption. The decline was particularly significant and pronounced in 4