http://hdl.handle.net/11090/965 Working Papers 2026-09-12T22:06:23Z http://hdl.handle.net/11090/1064 The mental health dividend of secondary education for Ghanaian women: Evidence from the Ghana Socioeconomic Panel Survey Adzah, Betty Baabo; Branson, Nicola; Whitelaw, Emma Across sub-Saharan Africa, widening access to and completion of secondary education – especially for women – has become a central development priority. More schooling is associated with improved psychological wellbeing, but whether completing secondary school in particular is linked to better mental health among women in sub-Saharan Africa is not well understood. Using four waves of the Ghana Socioeconomic Panel Survey (2009/10–2022/23), we estimate the relationship between lower- and upper-secondary credentials and women’s Kessler-10 (K10) distress scores, over and above a linear relationship with years of education. We find that an upper-secondary credential is associated with lower distress net of years of education: about 1.19 K10 points, or a 7.8-percentage-point lower probability of being at risk (K10 ≥ 20). This association is not concentrated among the tertiary-educated in that group. A lower-secondary credential is also associated with a 4.3-percentage-point lower probability of being at risk, net of years of education. The credential gradient is attenuated, but remains, after adjustment for observed economic security, household circumstances, physical health and care burden; economic security produces the largest attenuation.The panel allows us to track the same women between waves. Among women not at risk at one interview, secondary credentials are associated with a lower probability of being at risk at the next; among women already at risk, there is little evidence of a credential gradient in recovery. However, educational attainment is not randomly assigned and the current-circumstance measures are observed contemporaneously with distress, so the estimates are conditional associations and the sequential adjustment is an accounting exercise rather than a causal mediation analysis. The findings nevertheless point to psychological wellbeing as a potentially important non-market return associated with secondary education. 2026-09-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/11090/1063 Free Secondary Education and Youth Transitions in Ghana Branson, Nicola; Kwawu, Joana Deladem; Whitelaw, Emma Removing secondary-school fees can influence not only enrolment, but also young people’s subsequent education and labour-market pathways. This paper examines differences in education enrolment level, participation in paid work, or inactivity around the introduction of Ghana’s Free Senior High School (SHS) policy. Using four waves of the Ghana Socioeconomic Panel Survey, we compare the states recorded at consecutive interviews for young people aged 12–17 at baseline, distinguishing cohorts by their expected exposure to the reform. The clearest differences occur among respondents initially enrolled below SHS. Compared with cohorts with no expected exposure, fully exposed cohorts have a 15.0 percentage-point higher adjusted probability of being in SHS at follow-up and a 10.6 percentage-point lower probability of remaining observed enrolled below SHS level. Differences in paid work are close to zero, while patterns among respondents initially in SHS or inactivity vary across destinations. By examining multiple follow-up states in a countrywide household panel, the analysis complements evidence from geographically concentrated experimental studies of secondary-school subsidies with evidence on young people’s pathways around the introduction of Ghana’s nationwide Free SHS policy. The findings suggest that expanded access to SHS was associated with meaningful changes in young people’s subsequent educational pathways, rather than corresponding shifts into or out of paid work. The observational design, however, does not allow these differences to be attributed causally to the policy. 2026-09-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/11090/1062 Free lower secondary education and gendered labour market consequences: Evidence from Ghana Whitelaw, Emma; Branson, Nicola Following substantial progress towards universal primary education, governments have increasingly shifted attention to reducing barriers at the secondary school level. Tertiary education participation remains rare across Sub-Saharan Africa, meaning secondary school is increasingly the final stage of education most young people will complete before entering the labour market. In this paper, we study the labour market consequences of Ghana’s Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education (1996), a component of which removed fees at the lower secondary level. Using a difference-in-differences design based on treatment intensity and birth-cohort exposure, we estimate the effects of the reform on forms of economic (in)activity, disaggregated by gender. We find that the reform raised educational attainment: scaled by the 10th-90th percentile range of the observed dose, the average causal response implies years of education rose by roughly a quarter of a year, junior high school completion by 2.8 percentage points and literacy by 4.6 percentage points. In the labour market, the reform bolstered employment in the districts where it had most scope to operate, and did so along different margins for men and women. Men’s participation in any productive activity was unchanged while employment for pay or profit rose (3.5 percentage points) and production for own final use fell (2.9 percentage points) – a movement across the ICLS-19 production boundary. This occurred alongside a 2.5 percentage point gain in skilled occupations and a 2.4 percentage point gain in public sector employment. Women also left own-use production, by 3.9 percentage points, but only about three quarters of that exit entered employment: the remainder moving out of work and into care/family responsibilities. Women’s employment gain was almost wholly informal and vulnerable, with wage employment and skilled work falling. Demographic evidence suggests that part of women’s withdrawal reflects the timing of childbearing rather than a permanent change in labour supply. 2026-09-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/11090/1061 From Profiling to Prediction: A Multidimensional Vulnerability Index for NEET Triage in South Africa Grotte, Joanna; De Lannoy, Ariane; Tatham, Claire This paper develops and validates a Youth Multidimensional Vulnerability Index (YMVI) for South Africa using nationally representative panel data from the National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS). Applying the Alkire-Foster dual cut-off methodology, the YMVI measures intersecting deprivations across household financial burden, labour market orientation, mental wellbeing, and social networks. Nearly 90 percent of NEET youth are identified as multidimensionally vulnerable at baseline, at substantially higher prevalence and intensity than peers in employment, education, or training. This gap is statistically significant and invariant across a comprehensive sensitivity analysis encompassing alternative domain structures, weighting schemes, and deprivation cut-offs. Critically, baseline vulnerability is a robust predictor of NEET status nine to ten years later, with vulnerability coefficients remaining stable and significant even after controlling for baseline NEET status. It is the depth and breadth of intersecting capability deprivations, not NEET status at a point in time, that primarily determines whether disengagement is transient or chronic. The YMVI thereby offers an empirically grounded basis for multidimensional triage in youth employment programming, identifying young people facing structural barriers to labour market and education and training engagement, rather than those who merely happen to be disengaged when assessed. 2026-06-01T00:00:00Z