Schooling, Jobs, Political Attitudes, and Actions: Evidence from Free Primary Education Policies in Africa

Taryn Dinkelman, University of Notre Dame
Virna Vidal Menezes, University of Notre Dame

Economists have argued that frustrated labor market aspirations contributed to political uprisings during the Arab Spring in the early 2010s. Recent Afrobarometer surveys identify unemployment as the top concern for a majority of Africans. We investigate whether recent educational upgrading in Africa has contributed to frustrated aspirations and poor job prospects among young African workers, and to dwindling support for democracy in this group. We use the rollout of free primary education (FPE) policies in Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia to isolate exogenous variation in schooling attainment. Using the same difference-in-differences strategy in each country, we compare outcomes across FPE-eligible and FPE-ineligible young adults in Afrobarometer data before and after FPE policies were implemented. We find that FPE increased primary school completion by as much as 10 percentage points in some countries. Yet there is little evidence that more educated cohorts have worse job prospects, or are more concerned about unemployment or about democracy. Greater exposure to FPE raises active citizenry by raising the chances of voting in recent elections-- although this result is only found in countries with higher initial levels of democracy. Heterogeneity in our results underscores the importance of context for interpreting policy impacts.

Keywords: Human Capital, Education, and Work, Population and Development

See extended abstract.