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The Causal Effect of Education Policy on Female’s Decision-Making in sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from Nigeria

Evidence from Nigeria 

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The Education Systems of Africa

Part of the book series: Global Education Systems ((GES))

Abstract

This study investigates the causal effect of education policy on female’s decision-making in Nigeria using the change in the length of the year of schooling completed as the source of identification of the running variable, age. The Nigerian government increased secondary schooling years from five to six as a way of improving the quality of education under a policy transformation system. The change in the Nigeria education system affected secondary school candidates’ especially those that were born from 1972 onward. Using the Nigerian Demographic Health Survey (DHS) 2013 and a nonparametric regression discontinuity (RD) design, we exploit the effect of education for females born before 1972 as the cutoff point and gender gap in the labor market. The study shows that education policy improves female’s decision-making in Nigeria, on the average. The elongated education policy seems to have increased the year of schooling, which might explain a negative effect on the female labor market participation because of school dropout. This paper contributes to the methodological application and importance of female education in economic development of Africa evidence from Nigeria.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Africa Centre for Sustainability Accounting and Management, School of Accountancy, University of Limpopo, Mankweng, South Africa

    Olanrewaju A. Adediran & Michael Fakoya

  2. Economics Department, Tshwane University of Technology, Pretoria, South Africa

    N. P. Sikhweni

Authors
  1. Olanrewaju A. Adediran
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  2. Michael Fakoya
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  3. N. P. Sikhweni
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Education, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa

    Kolawole Samuel Adeyemo

Appendices

Appendix 1

See Table 3

Table 6 Regression discontinuity design result
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Appendix 2

Table 7 Stability test
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Adediran, O.A., Fakoya, M., Sikhweni, N.P. (2020). The Causal Effect of Education Policy on Female’s Decision-Making in sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from Nigeria. In: Adeyemo, K.S. (eds) The Education Systems of Africa. Global Education Systems. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43042-9_36-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43042-9_36-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-43042-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-43042-9

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference EducationReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Education

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