Educational inequalities during COVID-19: Results from longitudinal surveys in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

While the literature on the COVID-19 pandemic is growing, there are few studies on learning inequalities in a lower-income, multi-country context. Analyzing a rich database consisting of 34 longitudinal household and phone survey rounds from Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda with a rigorous linear mixed model framework, we find lower school enrolment rates during the pandemic. But countries exhibit heterogeneity. Our variance decomposition analysis suggests that policies targeting individual household members are most effective for improving learning activities, followed by those targeting households, communities, and regions. Households with higher education levels or living standards or those in urban residences are more likely to engage their children in learning activities and more diverse types of learning activities. Furthermore, we find some evidence for a strong and positive relationship between public transfers and household head employment with learning activities for almost all the countries.