Essays on the effects of free education and health insurance policies on education outcomes and women's fertility
Date
2021
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
In two essays, this dissertation examines the impacts of education and health policy reforms on student achievement, education gender gaps, and fertility in Ghana. In the first chapter, I examine the impacts of free primary education (FPE) on completion, student academic achievement, educational attainment, and on the educational gender gap. I exploit a fee abolishment policy reform in Ghana that was implemented in 2005. Using geographical and cohort variation in the intensity of exposure to the policy generated by the pre-policy dropout rates, I employ a difference-indifference identification strategy to evaluate the effects of the reform. My results suggests that the policy boosted primary school completion of both boys and girls but had a larger effect on boys’ completion. I also find that the reform did not have a statistically significant impact on test scores of the students who would have likely taken the test without the policy. Additionally, I find that the removal of fees led to additional increase in years of schooling, with relatively more impact on girls’ schooling. ☐ In a second essay, together with Richard Takyi Amoah, we investigate the impact of the free primary education policy and a concurrent national health insurance policy (NHIS) on women’s fertility, using nationally representative datasets from Ghana. The FPE policy abolished school fees in public primary schools, while the NHIS removed healthcare user fees in Ghana. Both policies were introduced in 2005. Using distance to the nearest NHIS registration center as an instrument and the geographic and cohort variation in the intensity of exposure to FPE, we combine an instrumental variable and a difference-in-difference strategy. We first estimate the effect of FPE and NHIS on fertility separately. We find that high exposure to FPE reduces the total number of births by 0.39 births and reduces the probability of first birth by 27 percentage points by age 25. FPE also increases the timing of first marriage by decreasing the likelihood of first marriage by 8 percentage points by age 25. Our results also show that women exposed to NHIS have 0.94 more births and are 35 percentage points more likely to have their first child by age 25. Finally, we measure the effect of exposure to both reforms on fertility by using an instrumented difference-in-difference strategy. We find that the negative FPE effect on fertility lessens with increasing exposure to NHIS, while the NHIS effect on fertility is reinforced with increasing exposure to FPE.
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Keywords
Achievement, Completion, Free Primary Education, Gender, Health insurance