Determinants of Schooling Outcomes: Empirical Evidence from Rural Ethiopia

This paper examines the determinants of schooling outcomes - current enrollment status and relative grade attainment - among primary school children in rural Ethiopia. We use repeated cross-sectional data from 15 rural villages in Ethiopia to capture the impact of the changing socioeconomic environment on these outcomes between 1994 and 2004. We find that parental schooling is positively associated with schooling enrollment but its estimated effects declines over time. We observe a similar decline in the estimated impact of father's schooling on relative grade attainment, while the impact of mother's schooling increased during this period. OLS estimates of the impact of household income are biased downwards relative to IV results. Community characteristics are not associated with schooling enrollment. However, the provision of electricity is positively, and distance to primary school negatively, associated with relative grade attainment. These findings suggest that policies that address both supply and demand side constraints have the potential to improve the low levels of schooling attainments found in Ethiopia and elsewhere.