Etwire P.M.

To attend or not to attend: Examining the relationship between food hardship, school attendance and education expenditure

By Martey E.

This study examines the relationship between food hardship, school attendance, and education expenditure using nationally representative data from a survey of 14,009 households in Ghana. After controlling for household, and geographical characteristics and using a standard instrumental variable approach to control for unobservable characteristics, we find a statistically significant negative relationship between food hardship and the number of children attending secondary, private, public, technical and vocational school, and expenditure on education. A differential analysis based on welfare stratification indicates a statistically significant positive relationship between food hardship and male children attending school, and the number of children attending private school for those in high-income households. © 2020 Elsevier Ltd