Sustaining enrolment when rains fail: School feeding, rainfall shocks and schooling in Malawi

Abstract

Emerging evidence suggests that rural children, especially older girls in low-income countries, are at risk of being withdrawn from school when adverse weather-related events occur. Identifying actions that mitigate the adverse effects of weather shocks on schooling, therefore, is critical for sustaining equitable human capital formation. In this paper, we use four waves of household and community panel survey data, merged with long-term, spatially explicit rainfall data to investigate whether access to school feeding programmes (SFP) in Malawi supports primary school enrolment when negative rainfall shocks occur. We find some evidence that access to SFP increases enrolment for older children when their households experience anomalously low rainfall conditions compared to those without SFP. The positive associations of SFP on enrolment persist when we consider historical shocks over longer periods. When we disaggregate by sex, however, there are no differentials. The findings suggest that SFPs, already a common intervention in many contexts, may have modest potential for improving primary school completion rates, educational advancement and human capital formation in the context of a rapidly changing climate.