REPORT

Understanding the socioeconomic conditions of the Stateless Shona Community in Kenya, 2019

Understanding the socioeconomic conditions of Refugees in Kalobeyei, 2018

WORKING PAPERS

"Early Marriage and Conflict: Evidence from the Biafran War"

Abstract: In developing countries, 1 in 3 girls is married before she turns 18 years, and 1 in 9 before age 15 years. Beyond being a violation of human rights, this prevalence of early marriage is a major threat to development. In this paper, I explore variation provided by the Nigerian civil war, known as the Biafran War, to study the effect of conflict on early marriage of exposed women. Specifically, I perform a difference-in-difference analysis by exploiting variation across ethnicities and cohorts, which determine whether women were exposed to the war. I find that women exposed at ages of 10 to 15 years were, on average, 7% more likely to get married before they turn 16 than those who were not exposed. This finding draws attention to the fact that individuals may fall back on harmful cultural practices just to cope with the economic crises they face.

"Evaluation of Educational Policies on Enrollment Rates in Ghana"

Abstract: It is well established that universal school policies in Sub-Saharan African countries have led to increments in enrollment rates in the year following their implementations. However few studies have looked at how sustainable these increments are over time. This paper analyzes the long term effects of Ghana’s Educational Policies implemented in 2004 and 2005 (the Capitation Grants, School Feeding Program and Compulsory Kindergarten) on enrollment rates in Basic School. It studies the overall effects, as well as differential impacts on districts and individuals depending on their characteristics. Both district and individual level data reveal that the policies led to an increase in enrollments rates, with an overall increment in NER (GER) by 25% (10%) in 2006 and 11% (10%) in 2008 respectively at the basic level. While the district level data reveals that on average, increase in enrollment rates have since fluctuated around these figures, the individual data shows that these numbers have decreased. Both data also show that even with the increase in these indicators, there are still disparities in enrollment rates by wealth and place of residence. However, there is no evidence of gender disparity, and also the gap that existed between the northern and the southern regions has reduced. These findings call for attention on the equity and sustained effects of these policies.

"The Impact of Conflict on the Age at First Marriage in Sub-Saharan Africa"

Abstract: Women living in conflict affected areas face some risks that are likely to have negative impacts on their wellbeing and sexual health. The economic and sexual hardships created by violence, deaths, loss of assets and income, breakdown of community norms and social ties can ultimately affect their marital decisions. In this paper, I analyze the impact of the variation in the intensity of conflict experienced during the marriageable years of women in Sub-Saharan Africa on their age at first marriage. Using data from Demographic and Health Surveys, and estimating a discrete-time hazard model, I find that women who lived in areas that were affected by conflict were less likely to enter marriage at any given age bracket than women in the same age bracket who lived in areas that were not affected by conflict. This effect increases for older women, suggesting that conflict may have differential impact on different age groups.