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Poverty And Children's Schooling In Urban And Rural Senegal, Mark R. Montgomery, Paul C. Hewett

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This paper presents findings of a Population Council investigation into the effects of living standards and relative poverty on children’s schooling in urban and rural areas of Senegal. The research shows that in Senegal’s urban areas, living standards exert substantial influence on three measures of schooling: whether a child has ever attended school; whether he or she has completed at least four grades of primary school; and whether he or she is currently enrolled. In rural areas of Senegal, however, the effects are weaker and achieve statistical significance only for the wealthiest fifth of rural households. To judge from the …