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Duration of high school education on early fertility and marriage: evidence from a policy change in Ghana
By Emmanuel Adu Boahen
Purpose: The objective of this paper is to examine the effect of spending one extra year in high school on early marriage and childbirth. Design/methodology/approach: The study takes advantage of the education reform in 2007 that extended the years of high school education by one to conduct a quasi experiment. The marriage and fertility outcomes of women who completed a four-year senior high school education are compared to those who completed a three-year senior high school education. Findings: The findings from the study indicate that the one-year extension in high school education led to a 4.75 percentage point reduction in the probability of ever marrying by age 27 and a 6.7 percentage point reduction in the probability of ever given birth. The authors demonstrate that the extension of the duration of high school education by one year has a heterogeneous effect, as it reduced the fertility and marriage outcomes of rural girls more than urban girls. The study reveals opportunity costs and confinement effects as possible mechanisms through which the policy affected early marriage and birth. Originality/value: This study is one of the few studies that examine the impact of the duration of secondary school education on fertility and marriage. For Africa in particular, there is no such study. Thus, this study provides a unique contribution to the literature since available studies on this subject matter can only be found in advanced economies. Unlike other studies in Africa that use a design that provides the combined effect of duration of schooling and school enrolment on fertility and marriage, this design enables the authors to only look at the effect of duration of schooling on fertility and marriage. Peer review: The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-04-2023-0323. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.
Cognitive and non-cognitive skills effect on labour market outcomes: a systematic review with implications for the African labour market
By Jacob Nunoo
The persistent skills gap in Africa poses a significant barrier to both economic growth and individual career advancement. While cognitive skills (CS) are well-recognized for their crucial role in enhancing employability, non-cognitive skills (NCS) have received less attention, especially in African labour markets. This systematic review examines the combined impact of CS and NCS on labour market outcomes in Africa, offering recommendations for aligning educational systems with labour market demands. Following PRISMA 2020 guidelines, the review incorporates 52 peer-reviewed studies published between 2014 and 2024, identified through the Scopus database. The findings highlight that both CS and NCS are crucial for success in Africa's labour market. While foundational cognitive skills, such as literacy and numeracy, remain essential, employers are placing growing importance on non-cognitive skills. NCS significantly enhance job performance, boost wages, and promote career advancement. Furthermore, targeted interventions in NCS development was found to be effective for women, reducing gender wage disparities. Additionally, a significant gap has emerged between the skills cultivated by educational systems and those sought by employers, highlighting the urgent need for reforms. This review offers a unique perspective on the combined effect of CS and NCS on labour market outcomes in Africa.
Household Multidimensional Energy Poverty: Impact on Health, Education, and Cognitive Skills of Children in Ghana
By Elizabeth Nsenkyire
Energy poverty in Sub-Saharan African countries continues to be of global concern. Its grave implications for the achievement of the sustainable development goal 7 (SDG 7) by 2030, validate this concern. Current studies, therefore, focus on analyzing the impact of energy poverty on child well-being, thus, their health, education, and cognitive skills. Despite this, studies in Sub-Saharan African countries where the highest energy poverty rates are remains scanty. Hence, using data from the current wave of the Ghana Living Standard Survey (GLSS 7), this paper analyzes multidimensional energy poverty and its impact on the health, education, and cognitive skills of children in Ghana. The multidimensional energy poverty analysis reveals that nearly 59% of children in Ghana are living in multidimensional energy-poor households. Further, the structural equation modeling (SEM) analyses show that a standard deviation increase in multidimensional energy poverty reduces child health, education, and cognitive skills by 0.155, 0.13, and 0.402 standard deviation respectively. The government through the Ministry of Energy and allied agencies and departments must commit to making modern energy accessible and affordable throughout the country to mitigate the negative impact of multidimensional energy poverty on child well-being. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.
Influence of teacher absenteeism and school distance on cognitive skills in Ghana
By Jacob Nunoo
Cognitive skills are important predictors of academic success and wellbeing in adulthood. Unfortunately, the cognitive skills of many students in Ghana and other African countries are seriously lagging behind global mean estimates. This study examined the influence of teacher absenteeism and travel distance to school on the cognitive skills of school children between 5 and 15 years of age in Ghana. Dataset for the analysis were derived from the first and second waves of the Ghana Socioeconomic Panel Survey conducted by the Economic Growth Center, Yale University. The study finds that teacher absenteeism and distance to school are detrimental to cognitive skills development.
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