School Availability and School Participation in 21 Developing Countries

Deon P. Filmer, World Bank Group

This paper uses 24 DHS datasets to investigate the impact of making schools available on enrollment, and how it might vary with gender or poverty. The approach is to estimate country level multivariate models school participation to child, household, and community variables–including distance to schools. Potential non-linearities in the relationships are explored and interactions allow for differentials for girls and poor children. The results support the notion that school participation and school availability are significantly associated—with gender effects in countries in Western, Central, and Northern Africa. However, the magnitudes of the associations are small. Simulating big reductions in distance yields only small increases in school participation, and only small reductions in within-country inequality. The potential bias due to endogenous school placement is explored in countries where data can be matched over time. None of the results from these three countries are consistent with substantial bias in the cross-sectional estimates.