Does Maternal Education Decrease Female Genital Cutting?
AEA Papers and Proceedings
vol. 109,
May 2019
(pp. 100-104)
Abstract
Female genital cutting (FGC) affects more than 200 million women globally. Education is often depicted as an effective instrument for abandoning the practice, but causal evidence is scant. This paper uses the introduction of the Universal Primary Education program in Nigeria as a natural experiment to identify the causal effect of mothers’ education on the probability that their daughters are cut. Household survey data indicate no statistically significant impact of the reform on the probability that daughters undergo FGC, which may be explained by an insignificant effect of the reform on maternal support for the practice.Citation
De Cao, Elisabetta, and Giulia La Mattina. 2019. "Does Maternal Education Decrease Female Genital Cutting?" AEA Papers and Proceedings, 109: 100-104. DOI: 10.1257/pandp.20191098Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- I12 Health Behavior
- I14 Health and Inequality
- I15 Health and Economic Development
- I25 Education and Economic Development
- J16 Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
- J24 Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
- O15 Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration