Randell Heather, Gray Clark
National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC), Annapolis MD.
Department of Geography, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chapel Hill, NC.
Glob Environ Change. 2016 Nov;41:111-123. doi: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2016.09.006. Epub 2016 Oct 7.
This paper examines the effects of climate variability on schooling outcomes in rural Ethiopia. Investments in education serve as an important pathway out of poverty, yet reduced agricultural productivity due to droughts or temperature shocks may affect educational attainment if children receive poorer nutrition during early childhood, are required to participate in household income generation during schooling ages, or if households can no longer pay for school-related expenses. We link longitudinal socioeconomic, demographic, and schooling data from the Ethiopian Rural Household Survey to high-resolution gridded climate data to measure exposure to temperature and precipitation relative to historical norms. We then estimate a set of multivariate regression models to understand how climate variability impacts grade attainment and school enrollment. Results indicate that early life climatic conditions - namely milder temperatures during all seasons and greater rainfall during the summer agricultural season - are associated with an increased likelihood of a child having completed any education. In addition, greater summer rainfall during both early life and school ages is associated with having completed any schooling as well as with attending school at the time of the survey. These findings suggest that future climate change may reduce children's school participation in rural Sub-Saharan Africa, slowing progress toward human development goals and poverty alleviation.
本文研究了气候变率对埃塞俄比亚农村地区教育成果的影响。教育投资是摆脱贫困的重要途径，但由于干旱或气温冲击导致农业生产率下降，可能会影响儿童的受教育程度，比如儿童在幼儿期营养状况较差，在上学年龄被要求参与家庭创收，或者家庭无力再支付与学校相关的费用。我们将埃塞俄比亚农村家庭调查中的纵向社会经济、人口统计和教育数据与高分辨率网格化气候数据相联系，以衡量相对于历史标准而言的温度和降水暴露情况。然后，我们估计了一组多元回归模型，以了解气候变率如何影响年级完成情况和入学率。结果表明，儿童早期的气候条件——即所有季节气温较为温和，以及夏季农业季节降雨量较大——与儿童完成任何教育阶段的可能性增加有关。此外，儿童早期和上学年龄期间夏季降雨量较大，与完成任何教育阶段以及在调查时上学有关。这些发现表明，未来气候变化可能会减少撒哈拉以南非洲农村地区儿童的入学率，减缓实现人类发展目标和减贫的进程。
