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Parental expectations and school enrolment decisions: Evidence from rural Ghana
Author(s) -
Ahiakpor Ferdinand,
Swaray Raymond
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
review of development economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.531
H-Index - 50
eISSN - 1467-9361
pISSN - 1363-6669
DOI - 10.1111/rode.12122
Subject(s) - investment (military) , preference , perception , investment decisions , demographic economics , empirical evidence , psychology , economics , developmental psychology , finance , political science , behavioral economics , philosophy , epistemology , neuroscience , politics , law , microeconomics
We use field data to investigate factors that influence parents' decisions to enrol children in schools in rural G hana. The empirical results identified a host of socio‐economic and household‐level factors including remittances parents expect from investing in education, parents perception of a child's desirable professions, cost of schooling and discount rate as significant determinants of parental school enrolment decision. When gender of the child and remittances are taken into account, we show male parents are more likely to invest in education of boys than girls because they expect significantly higher returns from their investment in boys. Female parents do not show such gender preference. The proportion of children enrolled in school is positively related to average cost of schooling for male parents G ender of parent plays a significant role in school enrolment decision making.