This paper investigates the effects of climate shocks on labour markets in the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU). We disentangle the differential effects of climate shocks on migrants and non-migrants focusing on migration flows within WAEMU countries. Leveraging unique survey data from Ivory Coast, the primary migrant-receiving country, and all seven other migrant-sending WAEMU countries, we employ a Propensity Score Matching technique that allows for a within comparison between treated and untreated individuals, addressing the double selection into climate shock exposure and migration. Our findings reveal that migration to Ivory Coast is linked to a decrease in female labour participation, primarily driven by marriage motivations. However, we observe an increase in female labour force participation and a narrowing gender gap in migrant households facing adverse climate shocks. These results contribute to the literature on the impact of shocks on gender-based labour division, underscoring how shocks may disrupt entrenched gender roles.

Understanding the link between HIV/AIDS knowledge and child marriage is important for designing and planning effective intervention programmes. Despite significant advances in HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, it remains important to study the impact of child marriage on HIV/AIDS knowledge because HIV/AIDS continues to affect millions globally. This study investigated the association of child marriage with scores on an index measuring comprehensive knowledge about HIV/AIDS transmission and prevention. Analysis was conducted on a sample of women aged 18-24 years, using nationally representative DHS household surveys from 18 countries. Findings indicate that there is no direct statistically significant effect of child marriage on women's comprehensive knowledge about HIV/AIDS once controls for other factors affecting knowledge are included in the regression. However, the coefficients for educational attainment are statistically significant in most countries, at least when secondary or higher education is considered. This suggests that child marriage may affect knowledge about HIV/AIDS indirectly through its impact on educational attainment for girls who marry early.

No AccessMay 2024The Power of Investing in Girls: Ending Child Marriage and Promoting Girls' EducationAuthors/Editors: Quentin Wodon, Chata Male, Adenike Onagoruwa, Mari Shojo, and Antonino GiuffridaQuentin Wodon, Chata Male, Adenike Onagoruwa, Mari Shojo, and Antonino Giuffridahttps://doi.org/10.1596/978-1-4648-2075-5_ch6AboutView ChaptersPDF (0.6 MB) ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareFacebookTwitterLinked In Abstract: Discusses the need to invest in adolescent girls by educating girls and ending child marriage. As elsewhere in West Africa, adolescent girls in Sierra Leone continue to have relatively high rates of child marriage and early childbearing and low educational attainment. Based on data from the 2019 Demographic and Health Survey (DHS), 27.1 percent of girls ages 18–22 had married as children and 27.3 percent had their first child before they were 18. In part, as a result, less than half of girls complete lower secondary education. For upper secondary education, the completion rate rests at about one-fifth. These risks tend to prove magnified at times of crisis, including in the context of the recent COVID-19 pandemic. Although gains in school enrollment for girls have come about in recent decades, the rate of progress remains much too slow for Sierra Leone to achieve the targets adopted under the Sustainable Development Goals. Previous chapter FiguresreferencesRecommendeddetails View Published: April 2024ISBN: 978-1-4648-2075-5 Copyright & Permissions Related CountriesSierra LeoneRelated TopicsEducation KeywordsGIRLS' EDUCATIONMARRIAGEEDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENTDEMOGRAPHIC AND HEALTH SURVEYDHSEDUCATION LEVEL OF PARENTSSECONDARY EDUCATIONLOWER SECONDARY EDUCATIONENROLLMENT RATESSUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALSSDGS PDF DownloadLoading ...

While research on faith-based healthcare in Africa covers a rich array of topics, we still need to better understand some of the basic features of the sector, including its size. This editorial provides a brief discussion of the size of the faith-based healthcare sector globally and in Africa and some of its characteristics based on data on the number of facilities operated by the Catholic Church in Africa, the largest provider of faith-based healtcare globally and on the continent. Africa is the region of the world where the number of Catholic health facilities operated by the Church has increased the most in the last 40 years, but there is a lot of heterogeneity between countries in terms of the number of Catholic facilities in operation.

Child marriage is defined as a formal or informal union before the age of 18. As in much of Sub-Saharan Africa, the prevalence of child marriage remains high in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in part because educational attainment for girls is too low. Based on qualitative fieldwork, this article looks at communities’ perceptions of child marriage and girls’ education and their suggestions for programs and policies that could improve outcomes for girls. The article also discusses potential implications for Catholic and other faith-based schools, as well as faith leaders.

Ten years ago, in March 2013, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected Pope, taking the papal name Francis. Pope Francis has had a profound impact-some would argue a transformational impact, on the Catholic Church and on the world. To celebrate ten years of his papacy, the idea came about to put together a special issue of The Review of Faith & International Affairs on one aspect of his magisterium: his vision for education and integral human development, including the idea of a Global Compact on Education. The essays gathered in this special issue consider Pope Francis' vision and how it may be relevant for schools and universities (Catholic or not) as well as for businesses and our understanding of the economy and integral human development.

Particularly in low- and lower middle-income countries, petty corruption remains prevalent in service delivery, whether in schools, health centers, administrative services, or other institutions. In reference to Pope Francis’ call to say no to corruption in his recent trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo, this article measures the extent of corruption in schools in Africa using data collected by the Afrobarometer. More than one in four respondents have encountered problems to obtain the education services they need for their children and nearly one in five have had to pay bribes or do other favors for education providers. This proportion does not appear to have declined significantly over the past decade. Regression analysis suggests that different household characteristics are associated with the likelihood of having difficulty obtaining the services they need and the likelihood of being a victim of corruption. Interestingly for this special issue, while faith affiliation does not seem to affect the likelihood of providing favors to obtain services, religiosity does appear to matter—and therefore so may faith leaders.

Pope Francis' vision for a global compact on education, including the role that Catholic universities should play, is in sharp contrast to the vision that dominates the higher education sector: that of producing graduates for gainful employment. Can Catholic colleges and universities rise to the challenge? This article provides a partial answer to that question by first considering four trends affecting higher education globally: (i) the impact of Covid; (ii) the technologization of higher education; (iii) the promise of employability; and (iv) the great unbundling towards micro-credentials. Thereafter, using data for the United States, the article provides a brief assessment of whether Catholic universities may be losing ground, while nevertheless keeping some sources of comparative advantage. The analysis remains explorative and tentative. What seems clear is that there is a lot of heterogeneity between institutions, with some struggling and others finding ways to maintain their comparative advantages.

According to Church statistics, 6.9 million children were enrolled in Catholic primary and secondary schools in Europe. Enrolment has remained relatively stable over the last 40 years in comparison to other regions of the world, contributing to education pluralism. This may be in part because in many countries, Catholic and private schools benefit from state funding, which helps in reducing out-of-pocket costs for parents to send their children to the schools. At the same time, public funding for private schools, including Catholic schools, often remains below the level of funding for public schools. This paper discusses enrolment trends in Catholic schools over time, compares the level of public funding for private and public schools, and looks at the relationships (or lack thereof) between such funding and enrolment in Catholic and private schools.

Service-learning can be a powerful tool to implement the commitments suggested by Pope Francis under the idea of a Global Compact on Education. The practice is considered high-impact for students. It can also help Catholic higher education institutions support their students’ search for meaning while strengthening their own Catholic identity in a way that respects the diversity of views about faith in the student body. Service-learning may also contribute to a culture of encounter, bringing more tolerance and compassion into the world. Do Catholic universities provide adequate service-learning opportunities to their students? Based on a recent survey, this article provides a diagnostic of the level of institutionalization of service-learning and community engagement activities in Catholic universities globally. While most Catholic universities do have a range of service-learning initiatives, these activities are fully integrated in only one-fourth of the universities that responded to the survey. There is however a lot of interest in doing better, and clear pathways for that purpose.

Pope Francis has made the protection of our common home a central theme of his Papacy. This may be nowhere more important than in Africa, a continent that is already today highly vulnerable to climate shocks due in part to high levels of water stress in many countries, food insecurity, and forced displacement, among others. In this paper, we use household surveys from West African countries to explore the impact of covariate shocks (most of which are weather-related) and international migration as a potential response to shocks on educational outcomes for children of primary school age. The results suggest that shocks affect educational outcomes substantially, but that international migration may generate benefits for children of migrants. The paper also briefly discusses policy prescriptions on how to tackle climate change, arguing that education to sustainable development should be a priority.

Enrollment in Catholic schools has been declining in the United States for half a century due among others to a lack of affordability resulting from legal barriers to access public funding, a potential weakening of the perception of excellence associated with the schools, and a trend towards secularization magnified by the sexual abuse crisis in the Church. What could Catholic schools do to stem the decline in enrollment? There are no easy answers, and there is also no single perspective on how to improve Catholic schools and make them more attractive to a larger number of parents. To suggest some answers, this article (i) reviews the literature on factors that contributed to the decline in enrollment, (ii) suggests that many parents who have not enrolled their (youngest) child in a Catholic school might be willing to do so; and (iii) argues that three relatively untapped sources of comparative advantage could improve students’ lived experience in Catholic schools.

Do parental priorities for what children should learn in school differ depending on the type of school chosen by parents? Does this, in turn, have potential implications for the future of Catholic schools in the United States? This article considers these questions in the context of the long-term decline in enrollment in U.S. Catholic schools. Specifically, the article considers three questions: 1) What are the priorities of parents for what their children should learn in school in the overall population? 2) Do these priorities differ between different groups of parents, including parents with children in Catholic schools and parents willing to consider Catholic schools for their children but not having enrolled their children in one? And 3) Are there individual parental characteristics associated with particular views about what children should learn in schools? Implications of the findings are discussed, specifically concerning targeted efforts to attract new students. The analysis is based on a market research survey implemented in 2017.

Reducing gender inequality makes economic sense apart from being the right thing to do. This paper measures the economic cost of gender inequality in earnings globally, regionally, and by country income groups. Given that gender inequality affects individuals' earnings throughout their life, economic costs are measured in terms of losses in human capital wealth, as opposed to annual losses in income or economic growth. Estimates based on the 2018 release of the World Bank's changing wealth of nations study suggest that globally, for the 141 countries included in the analysis, the loss in human capital wealth due to gender inequality could be valued at $160 trillion in 2014. This is about twice the value of GDP globally. Human capital wealth could increase by 22 percent globally and total wealth by 14 percent with gender equality in earnings. On a per capita basis, gender inequality in earnings could lead to losses in wealth of $23,620 per person globally. The losses differ between regions and countries because of levels of human capital wealth, and thereby losses in wealth due to gender inequality, increase in absolute values with economic development. For these reasons, in absolute terms, the losses are largest in OECD countries.

This article suggests that teachers and administrators aiming to understand patterns of violence in their school and how to reduce them can learn from simple surveys implemented among students with both open-ended and closed questions. The analysis is based on surveys implemented in two all-girl secondary Catholic schools in Nigeria. The data indicate that violence is pervasive, although most forms of violence are relatively mild according to the students. Proposals for curbing violence are outlined based on suggestions from students as well as the experience of school administrators and findings from the broader literature.

In many countries, those considering enrolling in a Catholic college or university may have a choice between a few universities or none at all. In the United States, they can choose between more than 240 Catholic colleges and universities. This provides a rich array of choices, but it may also make the decision of where to apply and ultimately enroll more complicated. This article provides a simple framework to discuss some of the factors that affect the decision to enroll in higher education and where to enroll. Four basic sequential questions that students may ask are considered: (1) Should I go to college? (2) How should I select a college? (3) How can I compare different colleges? (4) Should I go to a Catholic college? By providing elements of response to these questions, the article provides insights into the decision to enroll in Catholic education and its implications for universities.

This chapter explores that Catholic schools contribute in a very significant way to achieving the fourth of the Sustainable Development Goals – ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all. It documents the trends in enrolment in Catholic schools using data from the annual statistical yearbooks of the Church. The chapter discusses some of the specific contributions made by Catholic schools that benefit students and their families, as well as communities and broader societies. It briefly mentions some of the concerns that are emerging from the COVID-19 crisis. In many ways, Catholic schools appear to have done comparatively well. Catholic schools in countries that do not provide financial support to the schools are especially vulnerable, because the economic crisis has weakened the ability of parents to pay for the education they want to give to their children.

Global enrollment in Catholic schools more than doubled between since the 1970s with most of this growth observed in sub-Saharan Africa. This issue of the Journal of Global Catholicism is dedicated to lived experiences in Catholic schools. With articles reflecting on experiences from Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Nigeria, the emphasis is on sub-Saharan Africa as the region with the fastest growing enrollment in Catholic schools. In societies with rising religious pluralism, this article maintains that ensuring mutual respect and harmony among students from different faiths who study in Catholic schools is more important now than it was in the past.