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Environmental resource collection: implications for children's schooling in Tigray, northern Ethiopia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2013

Bahre Gebru  and
Sosina Bezu
Bahre Gebru
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Aksum University, Ethiopia. Tel: +251912897450. Fax: +251347751931. E-mail: bahregebru@gmail.com
Sosina Bezu
Affiliation:
School of Economics and Business, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Norway. E-mail: sosinac@yahoo.com
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Abstract

This paper examines the adverse effect of natural resources scarcity on children's schooling and the possible gender bias of resource collection work against girls' schooling. It uses cross-sectional data on 316 children aged 7–18 years collected from 120 rural households in Tigray, northern Ethiopia. The two-stage conditional maximum likelihood estimation technique is employed to take care of endogeneity between schooling and collection intensity decisions. The results revealed that a 50 per cent increase in collection intensity reduces the likelihood of child schooling by approximately 11 per cent. However, we find no evidence of gender bias against girls' schooling.

Type
Research Article
Information
Environment and Development Economics , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , April 2014 , pp. 182 - 200
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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