The impact of natural disasters on children's education: Comparative evidence from Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam

• Date: 01 November 2018
• Author: Cuong Viet Nguyen,Nguyet Minh Pham
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/rode.12406
• Published date: 01 November 2018

REGULAR ARTICLE

The impact of natural disasters on children’s

education: Comparative evidence from Ethiopia,

India, Peru, and Vietnam

Cuong Viet Nguyen

1,2,3

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Nguyet Minh Pham

4

1

National Economics University, Hanoi,

Vietnam

2

Mekong Development Research

Institute, Vietnam

3

Institut de Pr

eparation 

a

l’Administration et 

a la Gestion (IPAG),

Paris, France

4

Truetech Research, Hanoi, Vietnam

Correspondence

Cuong Viet Nguyen, National Economics

University 207 GiảiPh



ong, 

Dồng T^

am,

Hai B

aTrưng, Hanoi, Vietnam.

Email: nguyen.cuong@ippm.edu.vn

Funding Information

This study is supported by the 2015

South–South Scholarships Program for

researchers in Latin America and the

Caribbean, Africa and Asia (Grant No.

14-05-2014).

Abstract

The study finds a differential impact of different types of

natural disasters on education and cognitive ability of

children aged 12 to 15 years in Ethiopia, India, Peru, and

Vietnam using a Young Lives data set and child fixed-

effects regression. Floods tend to cause more harmful

effects on children’s education than droughts, frosts, and

hailstorms. Exposure to floods reduces the number of

completed grades of children in Ethiopia, India, and Viet-

nam. For the case of Vietnam, exposure to floods also

decreases school enrollment, and cognitive ability scores

of children. Although floods do not have a significant

effect on children in India, droughts, frosts, and hail-

storms have a significantly negative effect on cognitive

ability test scores of children. In Peru, the effect of disas-

ters on children’s education is small and not statistically

significant.

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INTRODUCTION

Since 1980s the world has experienced an increasing frequency and severity of natural disasters (e.g.,

EM-DAT, 2015; IPCC, 2007). Natural disasters cause physical and social-economic damage to peo-

ple through direct and indirect effects (De Haen & Hemrich, 2007; Pelling, Ozerdem, & Barakat,

2002). Guha-Sapir, Hargitt, & Hoyois (2004) find the world average damage is about U.S.$67 billion

per year and the economic cost related to natural disaster has increased 14-fold since the 1950s.

Children’s education is one of the key factors for capital human formation. The important role of

childhood investments in education as well as return to education has been emphasized in a large

number of studies (e.g., Becker, 1965; Campbell et al., 2014; Heckman, 2012; Schultz, 2002). A

recent concern is the adverse impact of natural disasters on human capital (Baez, De la Fuente, &

DOI: 10.1111/rode.12406

Rev Dev Econ. 2018;22:1561–1589. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/rode ©2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

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Santos, 2010). Natural disasters can affect children’s education through different channels. First, natu-

ral disasters can cause health damage and human loss for families, which directly affects the educa-

tion of children. Several studies find a long-term adverse effect of disasters on children’s health (e.g.,

Alderman, Hoddinott, & Kinsey, 2006; Hoddinott & Kinsey, 2001). Second, natural disasters destroy

education-related infrastructures such as schools and classrooms, thereby increasing the cost of educa-

tion and reducing access to education. Extreme events such as long droughts and heavy floods can

cause difficulties for children to access schools (Baez et al., 2010; Baez & Santos, 2007; Stein et al.,

2003). Third, natural disasters can result in economic loss for households. A decrease in income

might cause parents to reduce educational spending for their children and turn to children’s labor for

additional income (e.g., De Janvry, Finan, Sadoulet, & Vakis, 2006; Grootaert & Kanbur, 1995).

Although, there is a broad consensus on the harmful effect of natural disasters on education of

children, the magnitude of the effect depends greatly on different socioeconomic conditions. The

impact of natural disasters differs for different nations, regions, communities, and individuals

owing to the differences in their exposures and vulnerabilities to natural disasters (Clark et al.,

1998). Empirical findings on the impact of natural disasters on children’s education are mixed. For

example, Baez and Santos (2007) show that the 2001 earthquakes in rural El Salvador reduced the

probability of enrollment of children. Other studies such as Jensen (2000), Jacoby and Skoufias

(1997), De Vreyera, Guilberta, and Mesple-Somps (2015) also find a negative effect of weather

extremes and income shocks on children’s education. Baez and Santos (2007), however, do not

find a significant effect of a tropical storm on school enrollment of children in Nicaragua.

The fact that the effect of natural disasters on children’s education depends on different country

contexts calls for more empirical studies to better understand the effect of natural disasters.

Although there are a large number of studies on the impact of natural disasters on children’s edu-

cation in several specific countries, there is little comparative evidence between countries. A possi-

ble reason is a shortage of data on disasters and children’s education that are comparable across

countries. In this study, we estimate the effect of natural disasters on educational attainment and

cognitive ability of children aged 12 to 15 years in four countries (Ethiopia, India, Peru and Viet-

nam) in three continents using a Young Lives data set.

The study is expected to have several main empirical contributions. First, it compares the effect

of natural disasters on children’s education and cognitive ability in the four countries using a com-

parable data set. There are several studies on the impact of disasters on household welfare in these

countries: for example, Carter, Little, Mogues, and Negatu (2007) and Yamauchi, Yohannes, and

Quisumbing (2009) for the case of Ethiopia; Chhotray and Few (2012), and Datar, Liu, Linnemayr,

and Stecher (2013) for India; Schilderman (1993) and Carey (2005, 2008) for Peru; Noy and Vu

(2010), Bui, Dungey, Nguyen, and Pham (2014), and Arouri, Nguyen, and Youssef (2015) for

Vietnam. Studies on the impact of natural disasters on children are very limited in this country. An

exceptional study might be Yamauchi et al. (2009), which finds a significant negative effect of

drought on the number of completed educational grades in Ethiopia. The second con tribution of

our study is to compare effects of different types of natural disasters including droughts, floods,

frosts, and hailstorms on children. Third, in addition to education and cognitive skills, the effect of

natural disasters on other outcomes of children including health status and per capita expenditure

is also examined. By looking at different outcome variables, we are more able to understand the

mechanism of the impact of natural disasters on children’s education.

Overall, we find a differential and negative effect of natural disasters on children’s education and

cognitive ability. We find that floods tend to have a more negative effect on children’s education than

droughts, frosts, and hailstorms. Exposure to floods decreases the average number of completed

grades of children in Ethiopia, India, and Vietnam by 3.4 percent, 3.8 percent, and 1.8 percent,

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NGUYEN AND PHAM