Research
Research
Publications
Schoolgirls Not Brides: Secondary Education as a Shield Against Child Marriage
With: Hélène Giacobino, Elise Huillery, and Bastien Michel
Forthcoming in American Economic Journal: Applied Economics
Abstract. We measure the impact of a scholarship-based intervention aimed to reduce child marriage by fostering secondary education among adolescent girls in Niger. We find that, after three years of implementation, the intervention led to large and positive effects, halving both the dropout and marriage rates, and raising girls’ educational and professional aspirations for themselves as well as mothers’ aspirations for their daughter. In terms of mechanisms, we find evidence of changes in girls’ human capital and preferences. Finally, the intervention generated neither negative nor positive externalities on non-beneficiary adolescent girls, leading to an overall positive and large social benefit in terms of women empowerment.
Working papers
Children are a Poor Women’s Wealth: How Inheritance Rights Affect Fertility (Submitted)
This study examines whether the prevalent lack of inheritance rights for widows in Africa contributes to high and early fertility. Using a natural experiment in Namibia, I estimate the impact of a reform improving widows’ inheritance rights on fertility behaviors. Results indicate that the reform led to a 24% decrease in the annual birth rate, equivalent to a reduction of one child over a woman’s reproductive life. Additionally, the reform postponed the onset of fertility, delaying the average age at first birth by 5.5 months and reducing the likelihood to have a first birth before 23 by 7.3 percentage points. I provide suggestive evidence that the widowhood insurance motive for fertility contributes not only to high fertility rates but also to early childbirth. In contexts where the widowhood risk may materialize at a young age due to large age gap between partners and to survival rates favouring women, women anticipate the need to have a financially independent child by their 40’s. Such findings suggest that protecting widows inheritance rights could be a novel low-cost policy tool to delay early childbearing in low-income contexts.
The Fertility Impacts of Development Programs (Submitted)
With: Aletheia Donald, Tricia Koroknay-Palicz, and Markus Goldstein
This paper examines how women’s fertility responds to increases in their earnings and household wealth using six experiments conducted in sub-Saharan Africa. Contrary to predictions that an increase in female earnings raises the opportunity cost of childbearing and that this will lower fertility, we find that an increase in the profits of female business-owners in Togo and Ethiopia results in them having more children. We also observe a positive fertility response to increases in the value of household assets induced by land formalization programs in Benin and Ghana. These results are driven by women who are in most need of sons for support in old age or in case of widowhood. Our findings suggest that women’s lack of long-term economic security is an important driver of fertility in sub-Saharan Africa.
The Effects of Adolescent Girls and Young Women Clubs: Evidence from a Multi-Country RCT in West Africa
With: Olivia Bertelli, Othmane Boulhane, Claire Boxho, Elise Huillery, Harounan Kazianga, Estelle Koussoubé, Bastien Michel and Léa Rouanet
We measure the impact of an intervention offering weekly mentoring and training on sexual and reproductive health and life skills for out-of-school adolescent girls and young women over six to nine months in Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Mauritania, and Niger. Randomized controlled trials were conducted in each country, involving a total of 11,584 participants across 458 localities. The overall impact of the intervention is limited, with adverse effects in two countries. This challenges the idea that such interventions alone can consistently transform the lives of AGYW across diverse contexts, unless better adapted to local conditions and improved in implementation quality.
Selected work in Progress
Improving the Quality of Apprenticeships for Youth and Firms in Benin
AEA RCT Registration - In the field
With: Bruno Crépon, Thomas Escande and Patrick Prémand
AEA RCT Registration - In the field
With: Bruno Crépon and Patrick Prémand
Safe Spaces and Child Marriage
Analysis stage
With: Elise Huillery, and Bastien Michel