In many developing countries children play a vital role in the security of their parents in old age. While investing in children’s education often embodies the aspirations and hopes of poor families, many parents often do not invest even when returns are high. Many people form beliefs that they cannot improve their lives.
In a recent IFPRI Malawi brown bag research seminar, held on 13 February 2020, IFPRI Ethiopia’s Senior Research Fellow Alemayehu Seyoum Taffesse, presented on the findings of an experiment among poor households in Ethiopia, which aimed to boost parents’ aspirations for a better future for their children through exposure to documentaries featuring local male and female role models.
The study team used data collected in 64 villages of Doba Woreda, a remote, poor district in the Oromia region of rural Ethiopia. The data were collected in three main rounds of surveys: (1) a baseline survey in September to December 2010; (2) a follow-up in March to May 2011; and (3) an endline survey in December 2015 to January 2016. A few days after the baseline (at the beginning of the school year), the study implemented a randomized control trial of an aspiration-related intervention. In each village, six households, including both the household head and spouse were randomly assigned to be: (a) treatment households (HHs); (b) placebo HHs; or, (c) control HHs. The treatment HHs were invited to watch inspirational mini documentaries about people of similar background who were successful in agriculture or small business. The placebo HHs were invited to watch a placebo movie (local Ethiopian TV show), and the six control HHs were surveyed at their home. Videos were shown in the local language Oromiffa.
The study assessed individual aspiration levels along four dimensions: (1) annual cash income; (2) assets, e.g., house, furniture, other consumer durable goods, vehicles; (3) social status, and (4) level of education of oldest child. For each dimension, participants were asked what level they would like to achieve and what level they thought they would reach within ten years. The team further explored whether mothers have different aspirations for their female and male children compared to fathers.
Alemayehu emphasized that the intervention increased parents’ aspirations for their children’s education and increased enrolment, time spent in school and schooling expenditures. Overall, the study found a significant gap in aspirations between girls and boys. Respondents who have a girl as their oldest child were 15 percent less likely to declare an aspiration for post-secondary education than those who had a boy.
Looking at future-oriented behavior the study found that the mini-documentaries led to small increases in spending on agricultural inputs (tested only after 5 years) and small changes in welfare. But the intervention did not change gender-based aspiration gaps. When looking at the education investment by gender, Alemayehu explained that the intervention had positive impact on all educational investment measures, but no impact on reducing gender differential. Alemayehu noted that mothers and parents who never attended school had lower educational aspirations for their children and more so for their daughters, particularly beyond secondary education. The treatment did not change these aspirations.
Note: The documentaries used in this experiment were produced for IFPRI Ethiopia and are available here.
The seminar presentation can be viewed below.
Click here to download the presentation as pdf document. (606 KB)
Further reading
Tanguy B., S. Dercon, K. Orkin, and A. S. Taffesse. 2019. Parental aspirations for children’s education: is there a “girl effect”? Experimental evidence from rural Ethiopia. CSA Working Paper WPS/2019-05. Oxford. Available here. (also published in: AEA Papers and Proceedings 2019, 109: 127–132)
