| Abstrakt: |
In theory, declines in national fertility boost schooling by reducing age dependency, but questions remain about the size and catalysts of this dividend. We address these questions in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) by using a detailed framework and decomposition methods. Results about catalysts suggest that, beyond policy, dividends depend on characteristics of fertility transitions and changes in employment, economic performance, and public commitment to education. Results about the size of Africa's schooling dividends are mixed. On one hand, the annual schooling resource per child grew on average by $73 between 1990 and 2005, with a third of this growth tied to trends in age dependency. Yet despite these nominal gains, Africa lost ground relative to the world partly because age dependency declined even more in other regions. Only after 2105, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) deadline, will Africa begin to narrow its gap vis-à-vis the world average. Also, dividends are predicted to accrue earlier among countries already having higher enrollments, suggesting that transitions may initially raise schooling inequality across sub-Saharan countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
