Conference Agenda
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Daily Overview |
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Water Pollution Location: B129 Session Chair: Laura Grant, Claremont McKenna College | |
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Droughts, water access, and female schooling UBC This paper examines how drought shapes human capital accumulation in Sub-Saharan Africa, exploiting within-basin variation in upstream hydrological position as a source of heterogeneous exposure to water scarcity. Using 187 DHS survey rounds spanning 31 countries over 1990–2020, we estimate the differential effect of drought on school attendance and time to drinking water across upstream and downstream communities. We find that upstream drought significantly reduces school attendance and increases water collection time, with effects concentrated almost entirely among girls and young women. An additional drought month reduces female school attendance by 3.1 percentage points and increases water collection time by 10\% in upstream communities. These attendance disruptions translate into permanent losses in completed years of schooling for females. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that the water-fetching channel alone cannot account for all the schooling disruptions observed. Conflict emerges as a complementary channel, as groups compete for control over upstream water sources that provide greater leverage over river flows. | |