Impact of malnutrition on education inequality in Africa: A partial wavelet coherence analysis

South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Impact of malnutrition on education inequality in Africa: A partial wavelet coherence analysis
 
Creator Raimi, Rasaq Phiri, Andrew
 
Subject Economics; Development Economics; Education inequality; education inequality; malnutrition; wavelet coherence; partial wavelet coherence; Africa.
Description Background: The scourge of malnutrition in Africa is a significant obstacle to children’s education, impeding their learning ability and perpetuating poor health.Aim: In line with Millennium Development Goals (MDG) 1 and 2 and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 1 and 4 objectives, the study examined the impact of malnutrition on education inequality before and during development goals, in some selected African countries, based on data availability.Setting: The analysis covered the period of 1998–2020 and the data for the study were sourced from the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), World Health Organization (WHO), and World Bank Online Data Base among other sources.Method: The authors employ a continuous wavelet coherence analytical tool that considers time–frequency variations in the co-movement to examine the correlation between the series in 28 African countries from 1998 to 2020.Results: Results revealed a positive high-to-low-frequency co-movement between the two series, with malnutrition causing educational inequality from 1998 to 2010, and yet disappearing in subsequent periods. All in all, our findings indicate that malnutrition had a positive effect on educational inequality until the year 2010.Conclusion: The authors conclude that high malnutrition rates impeded educational equality in numerous African countries during the 1990s and 2000s. However, efforts to eradicate hunger, policy intervention in education, and other factors may have altered this narrative in the post-2010 era.Contribution: While previous African studies focused on child growth, the gender gap in education, and the incidence of poverty, completely neglecting the malnutrition variables, in this study a more profound understanding of education inequality in Africa is provided and the correlation between malnutrition and education inequality is considered which was not covered by previous authors.
 
Publisher AOSIS Publishing
 
Contributor
Date 2024-03-20
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — Quantitative Analysis
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf application/pdf application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/sajems.v27i1.5268
 
Source South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences; Vol 27, No 1 (2024); 12 pages 2222-3436 1015-8812
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://sajems.org/index.php/sajems/article/view/5268/2980 https://sajems.org/index.php/sajems/article/view/5268/2981 https://sajems.org/index.php/sajems/article/view/5268/2982 https://sajems.org/index.php/sajems/article/view/5268/2986 https://sajems.org/index.php/sajems/article/view/5268/2987 https://sajems.org/index.php/sajems/article/view/5268/2983
 
Coverage Africa 1998-2020 JEL D63, I24, C02,C65
Rights Copyright (c) 2024 Rasaq Raimi, Andrew Phiri https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
ADVERTISEMENT