How do aspirations and expectations affect boys’ and girls’ educational attainment in Ethiopia? This paper investigates the relationship between aspirations and children’s years of schooling, as an indicator of cumulative investments in education. It explores gender differences in aspirations (at earlier ages) and later school attainment, taking into account non-educational expectations, parental gender-based preferences and how they vary in a context of extreme poverty.

1. Do dreams come true?
Aspirations and educational attainments of Ethiopian boys and girls
Marta Favara and Gina Crivello
Conference on Gender
University of East Anglia
July 6th, 2015

2. Why do people in conditions of poverty under invest?
• Most policy interventions aiming to reduce poverty offer solutions to build up assets and
correct market failures relying on the assumptions that:
a) poverty does not alter the way people make decisions;
b) people living in poverty have a tighter budget constraint and a subtle margin of
error, increasing the price for errors of judgment (Bertrand, Mullainathan and
Shafir 2004).
• However, empirical evidence shows that people often under invest, even in the absence
of market failures or even when potential returns are high (Bertrand et al., 2004; Karlan
et. al 2013; Bryan et al. 2012, WDR, 2015).

3. How do people make decisions?
• How do people make decisions? Some insights from behavioural economics:
a) Making decisions is a time/energy consuming process: people use mental
shortcuts that ease the cognitive load of making a decision by structuring the
understanding of available opportunities, interpreting information and
filtering options.
b) Habits matter: when a behaviour is performed many times, future decisions
on courses of action are primarily guided by habits, rather than being based
on evaluative interpretations.
c) Gender norms and local power structures lead to underinvestment in land
fertility (Goldstein and Udry, 2008) and norms about caste behaviour prevent
parents enrolling children into newer forms of education despite large returns
(Munshi and Rosenzweig, 2006)
• Most economic decisions individuals make are forward-looking and are therefore
shaped by the desire or ambition to achieve a goal.
• Do people’s aspirations – mental models about their opportunities and whether and
how they can achieve them – limit whether they invest?

4. Conceptualizing aspirations
From this perspective,
• Aspirations are conceptualized as the capacity to visualize the future and engage
in forward-looking behaviour (Locke and Latham, 2002)
• They combine the wants and preferences of individuals, information about the
opportunities available, the expectations formed (about the feasibility of those
wants and preferences), and the constraints acknowledged by an individual with
respect to the future (Bertrand et al., 2008).
• In economic terms, aspirations can be considered as an additional constraint
limiting the ‘choice set’ which people consider as relevant and which motivate
their actions (Bernard et al. 2014). In other words, how far people aspire
depends on their own beliefs about what they can achieve with effort: people
would not aspire to an outcome that is perceived as unattainable.
• A weak capacity to aspire might undermine their efforts and translate into low or
null investments (Ray, 2006; Duflo, 2012): “..the poor lack the aspirational
resources (or capacity) to act and change the conditions of their own poverty”
(Appadurai, 2004; Ray, 2006).

5. Research questions
• How do aspirations and expectations affect boys’ and girls’ educational attainment
in Ethiopia?
o The paper investigates the relationship between aspirations and children’s
years of schooling, as an indicator of cumulative investments in education.
o It explores gender differences in aspirations (at earlier ages) and later
school attainment, taking into account non-educational expectations,
parental gender-based preferences and how they vary in a context of
extreme poverty.
• Intergenerational transmission of aspirations: to what extent are parental
aspirations an important mediating factor for children’s aspirations?
• How do individuals revise their aspirations according to the information they get
over time?
Note: The paper itself is a quantitative paper. This presentation is mainly based on
quantitative findings but bring insights from qualitative analysis to explore how
aspirations correlates to individual decision and investments.

6. Literature on aspirations and forward-looking behaviours
Little is known about how aspirations and expectations shape forward looking
behaviours. Two examples of papers underlining the potential importance of
aspirations to escape poverty:
• Seernel and Dercon, 2014: using YL data from India observe a strong relationship
between aspirations and schooling. Aspirations tend to have bigger effects for
children from the poorest socio-economic backgrounds and lower educated
mothers, suggesting possible poverty traps.
• Bernard et al., 2014: screening of documentary about people from similar rural
communities who had succeeded in agriculture or small business (Ethiopia). The
treatment increased aspirations and evidence of effects on savings and credit
behavior, children’s school enrolment and investments in children’s schooling,
suggesting that changes in aspirations can translate into changes in forward-
looking behavior.

7. About Young Lives
• An interdisciplinary and mixed-methods study which aims to improve understanding of the
causes & consequences of childhood poverty
• Following 12,000 children in 4 countries (Ethiopia, India-Andhra Pradesh/Telangana, Peru,
Vietnam) over 15 years
• Pro-poor sample: 20 sites in each country selected to reflect country diversity, rural-urban,
livelihoods, ethnicity, etc; roughly equal numbers of boys and girls
• Quantitative analysis:
Ethiopian older cohort ;
Round 1-4

8. Longitudinal qualitative research: exploring aspirations
• Following a sub-set of Young Lives children over a seven-
year period, using qualitative techniques to generate
narratives with children, parents/carers and community
members.
• Focus on everyday experiences of poverty: time-use,
wellbeing and transitions across childhood – this includes
capturing ‘aspirations’.
• We are interested in what aspirations might tell us about:
• Orientations, values of childhood, expectations for
girls and boys & timing of transitions – see
‘aspirations’ as part of wider imagined futures and
life projects
• What affects aspirations – why individuals’
aspirations change
• Intergenerational perspectives / Intergenerational
change and continuity, social change
• Inequalities – differential resources and
opportunities

9. Measuring Aspirations in Young Lives survey
Children’s aspirations: "Imagine you had no constraints and could study for as long as you liked, or
go back to school if you have already left. What level of formal education would you like to
complete?”. 1=Aspired to University. 0=Lower aspirations
Children’s expectations: “Given your current situation do you expect you will reach that level of
education?"
Parental aspirations: “Ideally what level of formal education would you like {child’s name} to
complete". 1=Aspired to University. 0=Lower aspirations
Parental educational expectations: “Do you expect {child’s name} will reach that level of
education?”.
Parental no-educational expectations: about childbearing and marriage, financial independency and
labour market
R1 R2 R3 R4
2002 2006 2009 2013
Age 8 Age 12 Age 15 Age 19
Child's educational aspirations x x x
Child's educational expectations x x x
Parental educational aspirations x x
Parental educational expectations x x
Parental no-education related expectations x

10. School enrolment and educational attainments
Female Std.Dev Male Std.Dev p-value Obs
Age 8
Enrol 0.68 0.021 0.63 0.021 * 999
Yrs school completed 0.46 0.033 0.49 0.036 1000
Age 12
Enrol 0.96 0.009 0.94 0.011 * 979
Yrs school completed 3.24 0.074 3.15 0.094 979
Age 15
Enrol 0.91 0.013 0.88 0.015 * 972
Yrs school completed 5.69 0.090 5.31 0.100 ** 974
Math score 17.29 0.697 21.99 0.804 *** 931
Age 19
Enrol 0.62 0.024 0.54 0.023 * 907
Yrs school completed 8.58 0.141 7.78 0.136 *** 908
•Late-age enrolment is quite common
•On average at age 19 they completed
about 8 years of education.
• Girls start school earlier and drop
out later than boys
•The higher enrolment rate among
girls can be explained by the division
of labour : girls do primarily domestic
works within the household and boys
tend to work predominantly outside
the household in herding or farming
activities.

11. Aspirations
Girls Std.Dev Boys Std.Dev p-values p-values Obs
Age 12 0.67 0.022 0.73 0.02 0.029 ** 934
Age15 0.69 0.021 0.79 0.018 0.001 *** 963
Age 19 0.75 0.021 0.72 0.02 0.298 896
Age 12 0.73 0.021 0.76 0.019 0.249 962
Age15 0.75 0.02 0.82 0.017 0.006 *** 958
Children's
aspirations
Parent's
aspirations
• On average, boys have higher
aspirations than girls at age 12
and 15 only.
• By age 19, girls catch up with
boys (more girls than boys are
still enrolled at school)
.6
.65
.7
.75
.8
.85
Bottom Middle Top
Wealth index
Female Male
• Aspirations are positively
correlated with wealth
• The gender gap in terms of
aspirations is the highest among
the poorest households

12. How do aspirations evolve over time?
.65
.7
.75
.8
2 2.5 3 3.5 4
round
All Female
Male
• In a seven year window (age 12-19), aspirations change significantly.
• People revise aspirations upward but only by a few years of schooling, mostly from
secondary and pre-university study to university degree.
• Boys’ aspirations decrease over time while girls’ aspirations increase, particularly after
age 15.

13. ‘TUFA’ - his changing aspirations, changing family circumstances
He left school in Grade 2 to seek paid work following his father’s imprisonment
having been accused of stealing from the private farm he was paid to guard:
‘Following his imprisonment, I was forced to substitute for him and run the
family. As I am the only boy in the family and my family is poor, I was forced to
drop out of school and engage in paid work to sustain the life of my family. I
was hired to herd cattle for one of the households in the community, in order
to feed my family.’ (Age 16)
Age 16, he was still in Grade 2, while his younger sister attended Grade 5.
Another reason for this grade difference is because Tufa enrolled late in school,
because his parents needed his assistance in herding, farming, and PSNP (public
safety net program) works. Once having finally enrolled in school, Tufa had to
leave his school twice because of his father’s imprisonment – something which
made him unhappy because he fell ‘behind his friends’.
Age 19, Tufa regrets having dropped out of school but he feels he cannot return
since he would be among small children in Grade 2. He hopes to work on
irrigation works, start his own vegetable business and his uncle serves as his
role model.

14. ‘HAYMANOT’ (girl) - her changing aspirations, food insecurity, mother’s illness
Age 12, Haymanot had recently returned to live with her mother in the village, having lived in
town with her aunt where she attended school. Her mother was ill and she needed Haymanot to
look after her. Her father had ‘run away’. She has an elder sister and younger brother living at
home. She and her sister worked in safety net program.
By age 14 she had left school Grade 5 in order to work in a new stone-crushing factory in the
community; her mother’s health remained poor and they experienced food insecurity. ‘My aim is
to finish school and get a good job so that I can help my family.’
Age 15, she got married. Her family was very poor, so her in-laws did not require dowry (which
was customary). Haymanot said: ‘I am happy about my marriage because it was arranged by my
parents and I stopped doing paid work since marriage.’ She describes the marriage as if it were
her decision. Hopes to return to school with her husband’s support.
By age 18, Haymanot was divorced and living back with her mother, along with her baby
daughter. She said that it was her mother who had insisted on marriage, and her mother agrees.
No longer sees returning to school as an option.
Haymanot: I want to work hard, improve my life, and help my mother. Then, I will choose a
man myself to get married.
Her mother says: ‘When Haymanot regrets about dropping out of school, I tell her that her baby
may compensate her. You know, she is not happy with her life now; she is disappointed when she
sees her friends who have continued their education. She also worries about me because she is
now helpless depending on me.’

15. Changing generational relationships
‘[B]ecause of education, my grandaughter knows a lot.
In the past it was our parents who were making
decisions for us. Now, we may advise them, but they
decide on what is important for them.’ (Grandmother,
rural site)
‘I got married at her age, 14. It was common to take
the bride without thinking wisely…… When I tell my 14
year-old granddaughter to marry, she gets angry and
threatens to report to the authorities. Children of the
day are very wise.’ (Grandmother, rural site)
‘In our time, we were punished and strictly controlled by our parents. Now, parents
don’t have much control over their children.’ (Father, rural site)
‘In the past, children strictly obeyed their parents. But these days, children can also
do whatever they want…they have relative freedom to decide on their own issues … If
parents try to control them, they may leave the family forever and go somewhere
without the parental approval.’ (Mother, rural site)
‘Children in our time were innocent, obedient…. punished if they make mistakes…
These days, children refuse to do things beyond their capacity… they know what is
good or bad for them…’ (Mother, rural site)

16. Wanting better (different) lives, compared to parents
‘My family depends on
agriculture. The harvest is
sometimes good; at other
times, poor… My father works
day and night because he is a
farmer. He loses a lot of
energy and may die soon…
But I want to finish my
education and sit in an office
with a monthly salary… I will
live longer than my father…’
(Kasseye, rural, boy, aged 15)

17. Parental aspirations
• Better performance in Math test
• Educational expectations: being able to go to university
• Expectations:
• financial support their households, getting
married/leaving the hh later rather than sooner
• Socio economic status (Higher parental education; Living in
urban areas; Less vulnerable to shocks)
• Lower for their daughters
Parental aspirations
(at age 12):
Child going to university +
-
Children’s roles within families are often defined by interdependence and reciprocity.
Parents’ aspirations reflect this:
‘If I help my daughter to finish university, she will support me financially.’ (Mother of
girl aged 15, Ethiopia)

18. Intergenerational transmission of aspirations (1)
.26
.22
.23
.024
.065
.19
.21
.03
.056
-.028
Parent aspirations
Math score
Hours studying
Agency Index
Girls
-.1 0 .1 .2 .3
Marginal effect
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
Note: pooling R2-R4 obs. Probit estimation with cluster-individual robust standard errors. Model 1: parental aspirations;
Model 2: add Math test, studying hours, agency index; Model 3: Full set of controls.
Aspiring to University
Children’s aspirations
• Children’s and parents’ aspirations are positively correlated
• Children who perform better in the Math test, spend more time at school and studying, and
with more confidence on their capacity to affect the future have higher aspirations.
• Once controlling for these three variables the correlation between parental and children’s
aspirations diminishes.
• On average, girls have slightly lower aspirations than boys

19. Intergenerational transmission of aspirations (2)
(1) (2)
Parental aspirations 0.133*** 0.189***
(0.026) (0.017)
Female -0.104*** -0.003
(0.030) (0.018)
Wealth Index (bottom) -0.017 0.038
(0.020) (0.028)
Parental aspirations* Female 0.104***
(0.036)
Wealth Index (bottom) *Female -0.104***
(0.037)
Math test score 0.002*** 0.002***
(0.000) (0.000)
Total hours spent studying 0.030*** 0.030***
(0.003) (0.003)
Agency Index 0.056*** 0.058***
(0.017) (0.017)
Observations 2385 2385
R-squared 0.167 0.167
• Do parental aspirations matter differently for boys’ and girls' aspirations? The correlation
between parental aspirations and children’s aspirations is stronger for girls than for boys
• Is living in poverty equally detrimental for boys’ and girls’ aspirations? Harsh economic
conditions are more detrimental for the capacity to aspire for girls than for boys.

20. Do aspirations matter for schooling decisions? (1)
• Parental aspirations are strongly correlated with schooling achievements.
• Nevertheless when controlling for children’s aspirations, most of the influence of parents’
aspirations on schooling achievements goes through children’s aspirations.
• At all ages children who perform well in the Math test and who spend more time studying
achieve better results at school.
.082
.21
.93
.018
.064
.28
.2
.93
.014
.046
.55
.47
.85
.019
.11
Child's
aspirations
Girls
Lagged grade
Math score
Hours
studying
0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1
Estimated Coefficients
Age 12 Age 15 Age 19
Note: Dynamic OLS (DOLS) VAM including all contemporeneous controls.
OLS estimation with cluster-individual robust standard errors
Dynamic OLS (DOLS) VAM
Maximum grade achieved

21. Do aspirations matter for schooling decisions? (2)
Age 12 Age 15 Age 19 Age 12 Age 15 Age 19
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
P_aspirations 0.072 0.272 -0.088 -0.064 0.073 0.190
(0.155) (0.187) (0.309) (0.113) (0.134) (0.216)
C_aspirations 0.110 0.333** 0.678* 0.213 0.565* 1.020*
(0.104) (0.131) (0.212) (0.148) (0.180) (0.293)
Female 0.367* 0.618* 0.544 0.284* 0.643* 1.512*
(0.194) (0.217) (0.367) (0.168) (0.200) (0.341)
Poor -0.360* -0.332** -0.471** -0.361* -0.350* -0.432*
(0.120) (0.135) (0.233) (0.120) (0.135) (0.233)
P_aspirations*female -0.279 -0.433* 0.548
(0.219) (0.249) (0.407)
C_aspirations*female -0.191 -0.494** -0.681*
(0.199) (0.236) (0.388)
N 782 751 552 782 751 552
R-sqr 0.36 0.37 0.46 0.36 0.37 0.46
Parental preferences Children's preferences
* p<0.05, ** p<0.01, *** p<0.001; OLS regression model with cluster-individual robust standard errors.
Model 1-3 includes an interactions for gender and parental aspirations; Model 4-6 include an interactions
• At age 15 boys whose parents aspiring for them to go to university have completed a higher
number of school years than comparable girls.
• Similarly, at both ages 15 and 19 boys aspiring to university achieve a higher grade than
comparable girls.
• Notably, age 15 is a critical age particularly for boys that face a higher risk to drop out of
school.

22. Summarizing survey results
• Parental aspirations are important for schooling achievements to the extent that parents
are able to empower their children and enhance their own aspirations, freeing their time
studying and achieving better results.
• Parents have higher educational aspirations for their son’s education compared to
their daughters’, but boys end up dropping out from school earlier than girls.
• The ‘return to aspirations’ is higher for boys: the default option for them is to drop
out from school after age 15.
• In contexts of extreme poverty, parents make pro-boys investments.
• Non-education-related aspirations and outside opportunities matter for schooling
decisions.

23. Insights from qualitative research
• Biographical view into why children revise their aspirations, and the importance of
family dynamics and changing household circumstances.
• Mustn’t view educational aspirations in a vacuum – they are part of broader life
projects and histories; children manage multiple demands on their time and
expectations (e.g. to go to school, to work, to care for family members)
• Notions of ‘choice’ and ‘decision-making’ imply that children have options and some
degree of personal (or even collective) agency – but in this context, these are
limited (including for adults)
• Intergenerational perspectives and social change: rapid expansion of primary
schooling in the country, many parents have little formal education, perceived new
opportunities and children themselves are influential in shaping the aspirations their
parents have for their children.
• ‘Aspirations’ aren’t enough to secure wellbeing. Education does not guarantee jobs.
When they see others struggling to secure employment, they start to question the
value of education for securing jobs.
• The material also matters very much. The characteristics of labour market demand
and traditional social norms around gender roles and responsibilities are likely to
substantially affect the opportunity cost of being enrolled at school.

24. • “Towards a 'Bright Future': Young People Overcoming
Poverty and Risk in Ethiopia” Nardos Chuta and Gina
Crivello, Young Lives Working Paper 107, 2013
• “Aspiration Failure: A poverty trap for indigenous children
in Peru?” Laure Pasquier-Doumer and Fiorella Risso
Brandon,Young Lives Working Paper 116, 2013
• “Education Aspirations and Barriers to Achievement for
Young People in Ethiopia” Yisak Tafere, Young Lives Working
Paper 120, 2014
• “Children’s Agency in Responding to Shocks and Adverse
Events in Ethiopia” Nardos Chuta, Young Lives Working
Paper 128, 2014
Insights from qualitative research: references

25. • “Children’s Experiences of Household Poverty Dynamics in
Ethiopia” Yisak Tafere, Young Lives Working Paper 132 2014
• “Youth Trajectories through Work and Marriage in Rural
Ethiopia” Nardos Chuta and Virginia Morrow, Young Lives
Working Paper 135, 2015
• “Risk and Capability in the Context of Adversity: Children’s
Contributions to Household Livelihoods in Ethiopia” Jo
Boyden in Children, Youth and Environments 19(2), 2009
Insights from qualitative research: references

26. • Young Lives children, parents/caregivers as well as
community leaders, teachers, health workers and others in
communities.
• Fieldworkers, data-managers, survey enumerators and
supervisors, principal investigators and country directors in
each country
• Funders: DFID, DGIS, IrishAid, Oak Foundation, Bernard Van
Leer Foundation.
Special thanks to

27. www.younglives.org.uk
• methodology and research papers
• datasets (UK Data Archive)
• child profiles and photos
marta.favara@qeh.ox.ac.uk
gina.crivello@qeh.ox.ac.uk
FINDING OUT MORE