Water Quality, Brawn, and Education : The Rural Drinking Water Program in China
Although previous research has demonstrated the health benefits of water treatment programs, relatively little is known about the effect of water treatment on education. This paper examines the educational benefits to rural youth in China of a majo...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank Group, Washington, DC
2014
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2014/10/20269513/water-quality-brawn-education-rural-drinking-water-program-china http://hdl.handle.net/10986/20519 |
| Summary: | Although previous research has
demonstrated the health benefits of water treatment
programs, relatively little is known about the effect of
water treatment on education. This paper examines the
educational benefits to rural youth in China of a major
drinking water treatment program started in the 1980s,
perhaps the largest of such programs in the world. By
employing a cross-sectional data set (constructed from a
longitudinal data set covering two decades) with more than
4,700 individuals between 18 and 25 years old, the analysis
finds that this health program has improved the
individuals' education substantially, increasing the
grades of education completed by 1.08 years. The qualitative
results hold when the analysis controls for local
educational policies and resources, village dummies, and
distance of villages to schools, and by instrumenting the
water treatment dummy with villages' topographic
features, among others. Moreover, three findings render
support to the brawn theory of gender division of labor:
girls benefit much more from water treatment than boys in
schooling attainment; youth with an older brother benefit
more than youth with an older sister; and boys gain more
body mass than girls do from having access to treated water.
The program can account for the gender gap in educational
attainment in rural China in the sample period. Young people
that had access to treated plant water in early childhood
(0-2 years of age) experienced significantly higher gains in
education than those who were exposed to treated water after
early childhood. The estimates suggest that this program is
highly cost-effective. |
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