Land fragmentation, women empowerment and school dropout of children in Vietnam

Abstract

This study examines the effect of land fragmentation on school dropout of children in Vietnam. To address the endogeneity issue, the study proposes an instrumental variable – that is land per capita at the commune level. The study also uses another instrumental variable – the percentage of land plot acquisition before 1993 – to check the robustness of the results. The findings are that higher land fragmentation decreases child school dropout. Land fragmentation has significant impacts on school dropout of children aged 10–15, however, it does not have any impact on school dropout of children aged 6–10. We explain these findings through one particular mechanism – that is women empowerment. A higher level of land fragmentation increases women empowerment in deciding to visit family, friends or relatives, the purchase of daily goods, large purchases, their own health, and their children’s health. A variety of robustness checks corroborate these findings.