Grandmothers and Children’s Schooling in 33 sub- Saharan African Countries

An important debate in the anthropological literature concerns the benefits children in poor countries derive from the presence of a grandmother. The broadly held idea that grandmothers are beneficial for their grandchildren has been challenged by the finding that in a resource poor society (the Dogon in Mali) the presence of a grandmother could negatively affect the life chances of their grandchildren. Using a newly built database with information on 763.615 young children living in 33 sub-Saharan African countries, we study the effect of the presence of a grandmother on their grandchildren’s educational participation under a broad range of circumstances. The results indicate that for children’s schooling the effect of the presence of a grandmother varies across circumstances, but is always positive. Grandmothers are particularly important when the mother is missing and for girls. Regarding the role of circumstances, we find grandmothers to be more effective in situations with more opportunities, like in wealthier regions and in communities with a more highly educated population. Grandmothers are also more effective in rural areas and farm households; circumstances that for many of them may resemble the situation in which they grew up.