Longitudinal data modeling of the effect of cash transfer on school dropout rates in the Research Initiative to Support the Empowerment of girls (RISE) trial 2016 to 2017
Date
2019
Authors
Sampa, Mutale
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Zambia
Abstract
School dropout rates, as well as early marriages and pregnancies are high among adolescent
girls in rural Zambia. In the quest to fight this, the Research Initiative to Support the
Empowerment of girls (RISE) trial has been providing cash transfers and community
dialogues to adolescent girls in rural Zambia. The overall goal of the study was to establish
the effects of cash transfers on adolescent girls’ school dropout rates in selected provinces of
Zambia.
The study was nested in the RISE trial which is an ongoing cluster randomized trial being
conducted in Central and Southern provinces of Zambia. A total of 3,500 adolescent girls
were included in the study. Random intercepts model for binary data was used to model the
individual effects estimates taking account of the dependency that was likely to occur due to
the repeated measurements and clustering in the study.
Girls who were married or cohabiting and girls who had given birth, were significantly less
likely to be in school (OR=0.004, 95% CI {0.001-0.02}, p-value<0.0001) and (OR=0.003,
95% CI {0.02-0.04}, p-value<0.0001) respectively. Consistently receiving cash transfers
increased the chance of a girl being in school (OR=8.51, 95% CI {4.50-16.08}, pvalue<
0.0001). There was an indication that the combined intervention arm had an increased
chance of girls being in school, however, we could not rule out chance finding (OR=0.89,
95% CI {0.59-1.36}, p=0.606).
The findings suggest that there is no difference between the two arms (the cash arm and the
combined intervention arm) on school dropouts. However, consistently receiving cash
transfers was shown to be a protective factor of school dropout rates. The findings also
indicate that early marriages and adolescent pregnancies are some of the factors negatively
affecting schooling.
Key terms: Cash transfer, Cluster Randomised Controlled Trial, Longitudinal
Description
Keywords
Marriage records--Zambia , Teenage girls--Pregnancies--Rural Zambia , Adolescent girls--Empowerment--Rural Zambia