Jointly Estimating the Role of Schooling, Marriage, Fertility and Labor Market Participation in Senegal

Francesca Marchetta, University of Auvergne
David E. Sahn, Cornell University and CERDI, University of Auvergne

This paper jointly estimates the determinants of education, age at marriage and first birth, and labor market participation in Senegal. We use a multiple equation framework that allows us to account for the endogeneity that arises from the simultaneity of the decisions that we model. Differences in the characteristics of the dependent variable informed the choice of the models that are used to estimate each equation: an ordered probit model is used to analyse the number of completed years of schooling, and a generalized hazard model for the other three decisions. Proximity to, and quality of schools increases grade attainment; and each additional year of schooling delays marriage and age at first birth by 0.33 and 0.14 years, respectively. Parents’ education also reduces the hazard of marriage and first birth, while the death of parents has just the opposite effect, with the magnitudes of effects being larger for mothers.