This paper relaxes the single-factor model of intergenerational educational mobility and analyzes heterogeneous effects of family background on children?s education in villages, with a focus on the role of nonfarm occupations. The analysis uses data from rural China that cover three generations,...

This study examines the effects of the extension of compulsory schooling from 5 to 8 years in Turkey in 1997?which involved substantial investment in school infrastructure?on schooling outcomes and, in particular, on the equality of these outcomes between men and women, and urban and rural...

Despite dramatic global gains in access to education, 130 million girls of school age remain out of school. Among those who do enter, too many do not gain the essential skills to succeed after they complete their schooling. Previous efforts to synthesize evidence on how to improve educational...

In Turkey, female employment and education are still relatively low, while fertility levels are high compared with other European countries. However, Turkey stands just at the edge of an important social transition. Increasing female education and employment come along with important decreases...

The Middle East and North Africa region is known for having low female labor market participation rates as compared with its level of economic development. A possible explanation is that these countries find themselves at the turning point of the U-shape hypothesis when countries transition from...

The Punjab Female School Stipend Program, a female-targeted conditional cash transfer program in Pakistan, was implemented in response to gender gaps in education. An early evaluation of the program shows that the enrollment of eligible girls in middle school increased in the short term by...

Conditional Cash Transfer programs are "...the world's favorite new anti-poverty device," (The Economist, July 29 2010) yet little is known about the specific role of the conditions in driving their success. In this paper, we evaluate a unique cash transfer experiment targeted at adolescent...

As of 2007, 29 developing countries had some type of conditional cash transfer program in place, with many others planning or piloting one. However, the evidence base needed by a government to decide how to design a new conditional cash transfer program is severely limited in a number of...

Instead of mean-tested conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs, some countries have implemented gender-targeted CCTs to explicitly address intra-household disparities in human capital investments. This study focuses on addressing the direct impact of a female school stipend program in Punjab,...

This paper reviews empirical findings from economic analyses of the role of gender equality and women's empowerment in reducing poverty and stimulating growth. Going beyond the large literature documenting the impact of female education on a range of development outcomes, the paper presents...