Early-life exposure to unimproved sanitation and delayed school enrollment: Evidence from Bangladesh

Exposure to environmental stressors during early childhood can significantly impact a child’s development and educational outcomes. In this paper, we examine the effects of exposure to unimproved sanitation in the surrounding environment during early childhood on primary school enrollment later in life in Bangladesh between 2007 and 2014. While Bangladesh has made significant progress towards eradicating open defecation, the country still suffers from inadequate access to improved sanitation. Additionally, although policies aiming at improving primary school enrollment have been in place since the 1990s, many children of school age were not enrolled at the appropriate time during the period studied. Using a pseudo-panel dataset for children aged six to nine compiled from the 2007, 2011, and 2014 DHS surveys, we find that children exposed to a higher proportion of unimproved sanitation in their community early in their life are less likely to be enrolled in primary school at the time of survey by about five percentage points on average, indicating delayed school enrollment. This effect is more pronounced for children aged six and seven than those eight and nine, likely because parents of children experiencing poor health or cognitive development delay enrolling their children in school until they are slightly older or healthier. Our results are robust to potential omitted variable biases and are further supported by additional analyses on matched samples. Taken all together, our findings highlight that increasing coverage of improved sanitation facilities can help improve school enrollment rates. However, this should not only occur at the household level alone but also should extend to cover all households in the community to ensure achieving maximum benefits. The findings indicate that the provision of safer sanitation facilities is not only good by itself but also is crucial for achieving improvements throughout the human capital development cycle, including health and nutrition, as well as education.