Schooling and Widow Remarriage in sub-Saharan Africa: Using HIV Rates to Explain the Rejection of Wife Inheritance

Wife inheritance, a tradition wherein a widow remarries her late husband’s brother, is increasingly being rejected by widows who live where the custom is practiced. Within these regions, the high prevalence and regional variation in HIV rates help to explain the decline in remarriage. Widows who reject wife inheritance are more likely to enroll their children in school, while child school enrollment outside these regions does not vary by a widow’s remarriage decision. In this paper, I attempt to explain what makes a widow less likely to remarry and why within but not outside of wife inheritance regions her children are more likely to be enrolled in school. The conceptual model can qualitatively explain that a widow enters the marriage option with the combination that gives her a better chance of enrolling her child in school and that an unanticipated shock affects the attractiveness of schooling once she makes her remarriage decision. I present descriptive regressions motivated by the conceptual model. ∗Boston College. PhD Candidate in Economics, 2011