Ecological shocks and children’s school attendance and farm work in Ghana

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dc.creatorMartey, Edward
dc.creatorEtwire, Prince M.
dc.creatorMockshell, Jonathan
dc.creatorArmah, Ralph
dc.creatorAkorsikumah, Eli
dc.date2023-09
dc.date2023-09-05T11:18:01Z
dc.date2023-09-05T11:18:01Z
dc.date.accessioned2026-06-27T13:33:03Z
dc.descriptionAccelerating the education of children and reducing child labor in agriculture remains an important development pathway to preventing intergenerational poverty and achieving the sustainable development goals. While several studies have analyzed the impact of ecological stressors on yield, income, and food security, there is limited understanding of the linkages of prevailing ecological shocks to child education and farm work. In this paper, we examine the effect of ecological shocks of pest and weed invasion on children’s school attendance and working hours on the farm using the seventh round of the Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS). We employ a multinomial endogenous switching regression (MESR) model that corrects for selection bias and endogeneity originating from both observed and unobserved heterogeneity. The results show that double shocks (pests and weeds) reduced the number of children attending school by 11% and increased children’s on-farm working hours by 0.75 h. Comparatively, the decline in the number of children attending school due to weed invasion (0.88) is higher than the decline due to pest invasion (0.43). Furthermore, weed invasion increases children’s on-farm working hours by 0.05 h while pest invasion reduces children’s on-farm working hours by 0.08 h. Increasing access to improved agricultural technologies bundled with credit and policies are critical to reducing the threats from ecological shocks and improving farmers’ welfare. To avert the decline in school attendance and children’s working hours requires training farmers to reduce the practice of continuous cropping and to embrace crop rotation and fallow to reduce the spread of pests and weeds.
dc.identifierhttps://hdl.handle.net/10568/131747
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/123456789/62930
dc.languageen
dc.publisherElsevier
dc.rightsLimited Access
dc.sourceMartey, E.; Etwire, P.M.; Mockshell, J.; Armah, R.; Akorsikumah, E. (2023) Ecological shocks and children’s school attendance and farm work in Ghana. World Development Perspectives 31: 100529. ISSN: 2452-2929
dc.subjectchild welfare
dc.subjectsustainable development goals
dc.subjectcrop rotation-rotational cropping
dc.subjectpest control
dc.subjectweed control
dc.subjectecological factors
dc.subjectschoolchildren
dc.subjectworking hours
dc.subjectbienestar de la infancia
dc.subjectobjetivos de desarrollo del milenio
dc.subjectrotación de cultivos
dc.subjectplagas
dc.subjectmalezas
dc.subjectfactores ambientales
dc.subjecthoras laborables
dc.titleEcological shocks and children’s school attendance and farm work in Ghana
dc.typeJournal Article

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