Ten-Year Impacts of Burkina Faso’s BRIGHT Program

IV: FINDINGS
MATHEMATICA POLICY RESEARCH
For 13- to 22-year-old girls, the program resulted in a 13.5 percentage point increase in
primary school completion rate. 33 The program also resulted in a 10.3 percentage point
increase in current school enrollment and corresponding decreases of 5.6 and 6.3
percentage points in rates of employment and marriage (Table IV.5, panel A). This suggests
that the BRIGHT program was successful in achieving one of the overarching goals of the
increasing primary school enrollment rates for girls. The program also prevented a significant
number of 13- to 22-year-old girls from dropping out of school to get married or join the labor
market. 34 In fact, the program had a 4.5 percentage point impact on whether girls were not
enrolled in school nor employed. For the girls who did get married, there were no substantial
differences between those in the selected versus unselected villages in terms of age at marriage
and age of their husband. Among girls who were married at the time of the 2015 survey, the
average age at marriage was 16.38 years in the selected villages and 16.29 years in the
unselected villages, and on average, these females were 17.5 and 17.6 years younger than their
husband in selected and unselected villages, respectively (results not shown in table). Because
they are in fewer marriages, girls in BRIGHT villages were also 1.7 percentage points less likely
to have children, although this difference is significant only at the 10 percent level. In addition,
we find similar impacts when we focus the analysis on teenage girls (age 13 to 19).
For 13- to 22-year-old boys, the program increased primary school completion rate by
8.8 percentage points, current school enrollment by 5.5 percentage points, and reduced
current employment by 5.6 percentage points (Table IV.5, panel B). This suggests that as
with girls, the BRIGHT program reduced the number of 13- to 22-year-old males who dropped
out of school to join the labor market. However unlike teenage and young adult girls, there is no
significant decline in the percentage of males not enrolled in school nor employed, and marriage
is uncommon for males of the same age group—the marriage rate is 5.5 percent in both selected
and unselected villages and there are no significant effects of the BRIGHT program either on the
likelihood of marriage for males, or on the likelihood of their fathering a child. In addition, as
with girls, we find similar impacts when we focus the analysis on teenage boys (ages 13 to 19).
33
We calculate primary school completion rates from self-reported enrollment information in the household survey.
For children currently enrolled in secondary schools, there is no uncertainty that they completed primary school. But
for those not currently enrolled, the survey only asks the last grade they were enrolled in. We assume a child
completed primary school if he or she reported to be enrolled in the last grade of primary school in the last year they
were enrolled in school. However, it is possible that some of the children enrolled in the last grade of primary school
did not complete the grade. Thus, our estimates of average primary school completion rates in the selected and
unselected villages could be overestimated. But if the BRIGHT program is successful in causing more children to
complete primary schools when they enroll in the last grade of primary, then the average for the unselected villages
will be overestimated more than that for the selected villages. In that case, the differences between the two
estimates, the impact on primary school completion rate, will be underestimated.
34
To investigate whether the improvement in school enrollment is the underlying mechanism behind the decrease in
employment and marriage, we conducted the same analysis with current enrollment included as a control. The
results are presented in Appendix Table C.6. With the inclusion of enrollment, the estimated impact of the program
on employment for both females and males disappeared, which suggests that the increase in enrollment likely played
a role in the reduction in employment. The impact on marriage for females became smaller by roughly a third but
remained significant, so the increase in enrollment may have played a role but likely does not fully explain the
decline in their marriage rate.
42