Free education delivers greatest gains in life to the poorest girls

New research in Burundi shows that scrapping primary school fees lifts all boats - but it's the poorest who benefit most in reproductive choices, literacy and income. By Frederik Wild and David Stadelmann

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Teenage pregnancy rates remain high across many parts of the developing world. In Africa, on average, about one in 10 girls between the ages of 15 and 19 has already given birth.

These early pregnancies often come with serious consequences for young mothers and their children. They are linked to lower education levels, poorer health outcomes and reduced economic opportunities.

Scientists, development agencies and NGOs have long heralded education as a powerful tool to reduce early childbearing. Education may directly influence women's reproductive behaviour, but it can also improve their employment and income-generating opportunities, leading them to postpone pregnancy.

But does access to basic education for young girls result in such successes uniformly across population groups?

We are economists who conducted a study to explore the effect of primary school education on fertility and its related outcomes in Burundi. A bold education reform took place in that country in 2005: the government abolished formal school fees for primary education. As a result, many children who had been excluded from school by cost were able to get a basic education.

The free primary education policy displays a natural experiment for researchers interested in the effects of education. Because the reform applied only to children young enough to be in school, we could compare girls who were eligible for free schooling with those who were just too old to be eligible (but similar in other ways). This allowed us to track the policy's direct and causal effects.