Child Marriage, Education, and Agency in Uganda

Abstract

This contribution relies on four different approaches and data sources to assess and discuss the impact of child marriage on secondary school enrollment and completion in Uganda. The four data sources are: (1) qualitative evidence on differences in community and parental preferences for the education of boys and girls and on the higher likelihood of girls to drop out of school in comparison to boys; (2) reasons declared by parents as to why their children have dropped out of school; (3) reasons declared by secondary school principals as to why students drop out; and (4) econometric estimation of the impact of child marriage on secondary school enrollment and completion. Together, the four approaches provide strong evidence that child marriage reduces secondary school enrollment and completion for girls with substantial implications for agency. KEYWORDSChild marriage, education, out of school children, Uganda 1 JEL Codes: I21 RUNNING HEADER SUGGESTION: CHILD MARRIAGE, EDUCATION, AND AGENCY INTRODUCTION Child marriage is defined internationally as a legal or customary union involving a boy or girl below 18 years of age. 1 The practice remains highly prevalent for girls today, with close to one in two girls still marrying below the

Economic Impacts of Child Marriage: A Review of the Literature

“…Field and Ambrus (2008) and Nguyen and Wodon (2015a) suggest that each year of early marriage below the age of 18 can lead to a decrease of 4-6 percentage points in the probability of secondary school completion for girls, with, in some cases, an impact of the number of years of early marriage on literacy as well. Data from parental or teacher responses in household surveys on the reasons why girls drop out of school also suggest that child marriage has important negative effects on education attainment (Nguyen & Wodon 2015b;Wodon, Nguyen, & Tsimpo 2015) The economic impacts of girls' reduced educational attainment can be measured in terms of reduced earnings and productivity. Depriving a girl of the opportunity to learn limits her prospects for employment and her ability to gain useful skills (Khanna, Verma, & Weiss 2013) or vocational training (UNESCO 2012) for the formal labor sector, inevitably impacting her lifelong earning potential.…”

The Drivers and Barriers of Renewable Energy Applications and Development in Uganda: A Review

“…In general, these reforms have resulted in the deployment of considerable private resources for investments, amendment in power-systems planning, and increase in levels of expertise and financial transparency in the sector [113]. RETs will thus play a vital role in attaining these plans in both on-grid and off-grid systems owing to the enormous energy resources in the country.…”

“…Furthermore, the Ugandan Government's Poverty Eradication Action Plan (PEAP) also has energy as an integral part of its plan due to the recurrent recommendation to link poverty alleviation and energy [43,113]. This is planned to be attained through grid extension, public and private sector involvement, mini-grids, and stand-alone electrification systems for rural/urban areas.…”

“…This has led to the implementation of major structural change in the sector. The energy policy also made way for the establishment of a renewable energy policy (REP) which aims to increase the use of modern RE in the energy mix of the country [113,115].…”

“…The endorsement of the energy policy (power sub-sector reform programme) by the GoU in 2002 made provision for the introduction of diversification in the nation's energy mix [43,[113][114][115][116]. The reform programme aimed at providing a sufficient, consistent, and cost-effective power supply to meet the country's demand, promoting the efficient operation of the power sector and scaling up rural and sub-urban access to maximize the impact on poverty reduction.…”