Nexus between Education and Poverty in Africa: Evidence from Sierra Leone

Abstract

We have discovered education as a lead predictor of poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa with evidence from Sierra Leone based on the country's integrated household survey 2011. Noticeably, education expenditure could have negative direct impact on welfare in the short run even though it delivers long run positive effect through indirect effect of covariates. This explains an inevitability of policy trade-offs with the simultaneous decision making problems a poor household faces, which would sometimes have to reduce health spending in favour of child education. Thus, careful policy is critical to ensuring optimal balance of effects on general household welfare that derive from household decision making problems.