Energy Policy 39 (2011) 28662874

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Energy Policy
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Childrens education and home electrication: A case study in northwestern Madagascar

o Karen Rajaona Daka a, Jer me Ballet b,c,n
a

University of Versailles St Quentin en Yvelines, 47 Bd Vauban, 78047 Guyancourt Cedex, France Centre of Ethics and Economics for Environment and Development in Madagascar, University of Antananarivo, BP905, 101 Antananarivo, Madagascar c Institut de Recherche pour le Developpement, UMI Resiliences, 32 Avenue Henri Varagnat, 93143 Bondy Cedex, France
b

a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history: Received 13 August 2010 Accepted 15 February 2011 Keywords: Electrication Education Madagascar

a b s t r a c t
Assessments of the impact of electrication on the quality of life of households in developing countries have increased over the last decade. One aspect that has still received little attention is education and the ability of children to keep up at school. The underlying hypothesis is that electrication enables children to do their homework in the evening and so keep up with their school work. To this rst hypothesis we add a second one, concerning the relation between access to electricity and attendance to school according to gender. Although most household tasks are carried out by the mothers, their daughters are also involved, and electrication could have a benecial effect by making easier for girls to do their homework in the evening and easier for the mothers to help them. We will check the validity of these hypotheses using a case study of 162 children attending school in a small town in northwestern Madagascar. & 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Access to education for all is one of the millennium objectives. The energy sources used by households can affect the achievement of these objectives. In Madagascar, only a few children between 6 and 14 years get beyond primary level. In fact, according to a household survey (MEFB/INSTAT, 2005), only 43% continue their education beyond primary school.1 On the basis of a study conducted in a deprived neighbourhood of the capital of Madagascar (Antananarivo), Andrianjaka and Droy (2003) have shown that the factors that have a signicant inuence on the education level of the children are the level of education of the parents, the socio-economic status of the household, the size of the family, and the access to education and its quality. These ndings are consistent with many conclusions drawn from research in other developing countries (Jensen and Nielsen, 1997; Kabeer et al., 2003; Bissel, 2005, amongst others).

n Corresponding author at: Institut de Recherche pour le Developpement, UMI Resiliences, 32 Avenue Henri Varagnat, 93143 Bondy cedex, France. E-mail addresses: karen_rajaona@yahoo.fr (K.R. Daka), jballetfr@yahoo.fr (J. Ballet). 1 The educational system in Madagascar is structured as follows. Primary school (not including pre-school education) has ve grades. After successful primary studies, and obtaining their C.E.P.E (primary education certicate), the pupils spend four years in the rst cycle of secondary education, followed by three years in the second cycle, which leads to the Baccalaureate. Finally, university also consists of two levels each lasting two or three years (or more).

The effect of access to the electricity supply in home on the education of children is an aspect that has received relatively little exploration (Gustavsson, 2007). One good reason for this lies in the access to electricity and income level in parallel. Income is therefore the explanatory variable generally used. However, the social aspects of development make an essential contribution to achieving sustainable human development (Dubois et al., 2001), and some studies have documented the effects of access to electricity on the social and economic dimensions of development and quality of life (James et al., 1999; Wamukonya and Davis, 1999; Barkat et al., 2002; Barnes et al., 2002; Martins, 2006; Adewusi and Adeoti, 2007; World Bank, 2007; Khander et al. 2009; and others). The link with education has so far received little analysis. The essential hypothesis is that access to electricity has a benecial impact on education (Foley, 1992; Andersson et al., 1999; Wilkins, 2002). However, Zomers (1991) presents a series of studies with conicting results. On one hand, as a result of electrication, exposure to radio and television makes it easier to understand the languages used in the programmes. On the other hand, it increases the time spent in front of the television, and as a consequence reduces the time spent in studying. Some recent studies highlight the benecial effects of electrication on education. In the case of Zambia, Gustavsson (2007) has pointed out that children in a household with access to solar energy spend more time doing their homework as compared to the neighbours children, who do not have access to this energy. However, we cannot draw any conclusions from this about the childrens

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education. Kanagawa and Nakata (2008) highlight that in the case of India the electrication of households in rural zones may seriously reduce illiteracy. Khander et al. (2009) show that, in the case of Bangladesh, the duration of school attendance by children is correlated with the duration of access to electricity. This conrms the ndings of Barnes et al. (2002) in the Philippines indicating that children from homes with access to electricity on average attend school for two years longer than those from homes without access to electricity. These results support the hypothesis of Nieuwenhout et al. (2001) that the effects of electrication can only be determined over a fairly lengthy period. Some research has also tested the impact of electrication of neighbourhoods, rather than that of households, on childrens education. In the case of Pakistan, Us Saqib (1995) reports that the electrication of neighbourhoods increases the willingness of households to pay for education. In contrast, Wirakartakusumah (1988) points out that the impact of electrication on school attendance by children has not been signicant in Java. This article extends the reexion on the link between access to electricity and the education of children on the basis of a case study in Madagascar. We will consider access to electricity as being access to light points (lamps). We will therefore not investigate at least some other potential considerations. First, we will not take into account the possibility of having access to electricity outside the house, for example on the village square or in the streets. Second we will not take into account the role of TV or radio in our analysis. We formulated two main hypotheses. The rst, and the most obvious, hypothesis is that electrication of the home allows children to do their homework in the evening, thus increasing their ability to keep up at school. In the public schools in Madagascar the school day lasts 5 h per day, with the pupils divided into two groups: those who attend from 7 to 12 a.m. in the morning, and those who attend from 12: 30 to 5: 30 p.m. in the afternoon, whereas private schools are open from 8:30 to 12 a.m. and from 2 to 16:30 p.m. These timetables leave time for homework, but they also interfere with leisure activities and the domestic chores (or housework) assigned to the children. The lack of lighting makes it difcult for the parents of these children to help them with their homework.2 Thus, electrication allows parents to see how their children are getting on at school, and to help them with their homework. The second hypothesis focuses on the question of gender. Housework is done mainly by mothers, but their daughters also contribute, and so electrication could have a benecial effect by making it easier for girls to do their homework in the evening and for their mothers to help them. Such a hypothesis does, of course, suppose that the childrens mothers are capable of monitoring their childrens school work, whereas in fact in Madagascar, in particular in rural zones, the level of illiteracy is relatively high amongst women. However, as we out below, in our sample, the great majority of the mothers had reached at least secondary level. We can therefore take it that they were capable of following their childrens school work. This investigation was intended to check the pertinence of such hypotheses. The research was based on a survey carried out in Antsohihy, a small town in northwestern Madagascar, on 100 households within which at least one child attends a public or private school. The rest of the article consists of the following sections: in the second section we describe the area studied, and how the data
2 It should be noted that darkness falls fairly early in Madagascar. The sun begins to set from about 5 p.m. during the winter season, which is the holiday season. However, denitely, in rural areas, pupils take generally 30 min to cover the distance of schoolhome.

were gathered. The third section reports the corresponding descriptive statistics. The fourth section proposes a classication of the types of households based on a correspondence factor analysis. This classication will allow us to categorise households on the basis of the sources of energy they use to light their homes and various other characteristics. Finally, we draw our conclusions.

2. Zone studied and methodology The study was carried out in the urban neighbourhood of Antsohihy.3 This is a small, partly urban/partly rural town (10% urbanisation) located in the Soa Region of northwestern Madagascar. This locality was chosen because it ensured that a fairly mixed population would be included. If we had concentrated on a purely rural zone, this would have limited our ability to carry out an analysis, given the very low level of electrication amongst households. In contrast, if we had focused on a predominantly urban zone, we would have encountered a similar problem of uniformity, but this time because of the virtually universal electrication of households. A mixed urban/rural zone such as Antsohihy provided a mixture of households with regard to their access to energy, which made it easier to carry out a comparative analysis. Antsohihy consists of 7 fokontanies (or groups of neighbourhoods), and has about 69,000 inhabitants. It should be noted that the only ourishing activity in the town is trade. The main source of electricity in Antsohihy is the JIRAMA (the electricity and water supply company of Madagascar) the motors and generators of which are fed with diesel. The price per kW h is very high, 160 ariray/kW h, and as a result expensive in terms of the rather low living standards of the population. According to the data provided by the JIRAMA, on average a household with electricity in the zone spends about 16,000 ariary per month on electricity.4 Thus in total, only 1797 households (20%) are able to afford electricity, notably for lighting. This number applies only to urban Antsohihy. Of the 10 rural districts that make up the sub-prefecture of Antsohihy, only 3 have access to electricity supplied by JIRAMA. The data used were produced by a survey of a panel of 100 households whose children were receiving education and attending either a public school or a private school. In our study, 162 children were identied to be attending school. These children came from three fokontanies in the town: 42 from the fokontany of Haute Ville, 35 from the fokontany of Ambalakida and 85 from the fokontany of Ambalabe west. This distribution of the children resulted from a random household sampling process. We therefore took into account all the children attending school in the randomly selected families. As a result, the proportions of children per fokontany differed from the proportion of households in them (25 in the Haute Ville and Ambalakida fokontanies, and 50 in the Ambalabe west fonkatany). Sampling was carried out on two occasions. On the rst occasion, the fokontanies were selected. We met with the leader of the Antsohihy council, and after briey describing our work and what we hoped to achieve, we asked him about the socioeconomic characteristics of the town. Our questions concerned the number of inhabitants, the economic activities, the basic
3 Antsohihy means: The place with a lot of Sohihy trees. This tree (Breonadia microcephalaRubiaceae) used to be common in the district and was used to build boats. 4 As we point out below, more than half of the households surveyed earn less than 300,000 ariary per year. The cost of electricity therefore amounts to more than half of their annual salary for these households.

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infrastructures, and the number of fokontanies in the town. On the basis of the information obtained from him, we randomly selected 3 out of the 7 fokontanies of the town by simple random selection. Next, households in each fokontany were selected. The choice of which households to survey was based on a systematic random sampling procedure in which the statistical units, i.e. the households, were selected at regular intervals. The sampling step or selection interval was calculated by dividing the number of households that make up the fokontany by the size of the sample sought in that fokontany, so as to obtain a representative sample of the households per fokontany. The survey was carried out in March 2009, and our questionnaire was largely based on the work of the World Bank (2001). Interviews were carried out with the head of the household, regardless of whether this was a man or a woman. Consequently, women were interviewed when they were in sole charge of the household, but when the household included a man who was identied as the head of the household, he was the person interviewed. This had important implications as there could be a gender-related bias, and the answers given by men may differ from those provided by women, not on the basis of objective differences, but due to differences in their perception of the problems. We are of course well aware of this limitation, but we did not think that that there was any possible alternative. For instance, if we had decided only to interview women, even in households headed by men, this would have entailed going to see them when the men were not at home (to avoid possible bias in the answers given by the women when their husbands were present). This would have been difcult to achieve given that we did not know anything about who we would nd present in the households when we rst visited them.

Table 1 Characteristics of the children. Number Gender of the child Boy Girl Total Status of the child Child of the head of the household Not a child of the head of the household Total Gender of the head of the household Male Female Total Level of education Primary Lower secondary Upper secondary Total %

88 74 162 120 42 162 103 59 162 77 59 26 162

54.3 45.7 100.0 74.1 25.9 100.0 63.6 36.4 100.0 47.5 36.4 16.0 100.0

These were children that had been entrusted to this household by other family members. Over one-third of the heads of household were women (36.6%). This nding may have had some impact on monitoring the childrens education. 3.2. Housing and energy for lighting With regard to housing and the sources of the energy used for lighting, most households live either in an adobe hut (38.9%) or in a masonry house (38.9%). A fair proportion of households also lives in a brick hut (13%). These different types of housing reect differences in standards of living. There is a very signicant inverse relationship between the type of housing and income (Table 2).6 However, 71.6% of households have electricity versus 28.4% who do not. 58% of households also use candles and 61.1% use parafn lamps (Table 3). It should be noted that electricity seems to be a good substitute for parafn, whereas households with electricity also use candles (Table 4). This nding certainly reects the fact that candles are used as a supplementary source of lighting, whereas parafn is not. The frequent electricity cuts, and the high cost of electricity, mean that households tend to use candles as a backup source of lighting. In contrast, parafn is partially abandoned once households have an electricity supply. This difference may be linked to the relatively high cost of parafn, which is therefore discarded as soon as households have access to electricity. 3.3. Childrens school attendance and time devoted to housework With regard to the childrens school attendance (Table 5), 51.2% attend public school versus 48.8% attending private school. In most cases (87%), homework is done in the evening. This could be either because domestic chores are done before homework, or because the children do not do their homework until their parents are free to help them, and in fact both could be true
6 Here only cash income was taken into consideration. In Madagascar, and particularly in the rural areas, the cash income provides only a very imperfect indication of the standard of living, since the great majority of households consumes part of what they produce. However, as the cash income also reects the households ability to manage without consuming its own produce, it does provide a signicant indication of the level of standard of living. In other words, although the cash income is not sufcient to analyse the standard of living of the households, it does reect the differences in standard of living, which is what matters here.

3. Descriptive statistics The data collected during the survey were divided into three categories: the characteristics of the child, the socio-economic conditions of the households life, based on its housing to its use of various sources of energy to provide lighting, and nally the school attendance of the children, and the time they spend doing housework (household chores) and school homework. 3.1. Characteristics of the children The numbers of children of each sex were roughly equal, although there were slightly more boys (54%). The children had a mean age of 12.6 years. As a result of our randomised sampling method, we did not select a specic age group, but considered all the children attending school in the households selected.5 We were able to divide the children into three levels of education. 47.5% of the panel of children were attending primary school, and the others secondary school (Table 1). Quite a signicant proportion of the children was unrelated to the head of the household.
5 An analysis based on the age group would have made it possible to provide a more precise picture of the effects of the other variables, but this would have required a two-step approach. In the rst step, households would be randomly selected, as in our study. In the second step, amongst the households selected only children belonging to a given age group would be selected. This dual process would obviously be more expensive, since it entails selecting more households in order to end up with a sufciently large, homogeneous age group. We therefore limited our survey to the rst step for reasons of cost. Furthermore our survey does not provide information about the rank of the child amongst the siblings. This information could also be pertinent to rene the analysis. However, once again, a larger survey would be required to obtain a representative sample in terms of rank.

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Table 2 Relationship between housing and income. Less than 300,000 ariary/year Relative frequency (N) PMD Between 300,000 and 450,000 ariary/year Relative frequency (N) PMD More than 450,000 ariray/year Relative frequency (N) PMD Total

(N)

w 45.4; df4; p 0.001 Wooden hut/brick hut Adobe hut/palm hut Masonry house/apartment Total

70.4 77.6 22.4 53.4

(19) (52) (15) (86)

36% 52%

18.5 (5) 9.0 (6) 37.3 (25) 22.4 (36)

48%

11.1 (3) 13.4 (9) 40.3 (27) 24.2 (39)

47%

(27)100 (67)100 (67)100 (161)100

PMD: percentage from maximum deviation

Table 3 Housing and sources of energy. Number Types of housing Wooden hut Brick hut Adobe hut Palm hut Masonry house Apartment Total Electricity No electricity Have electricity Total Other sources of energy for lighting Candles Candles not used Candles used Total Parafn Parafn not used Parafn used Total %

6 21 63 4 63 5 162 46 116 162

3.7 13.0 38.9 2.5 38.9 3.1 100.0 28.4 71.6 100.0

94 68 162 63 99 162

58.0 42.0 100 38.9 61.1 100

simultaneously. The role of lighting would therefore appear to be crucial for the ability of children to continue their education. This is particularly true because virtually all the children (94.4%) are involved in domestic chores (housework), and so homework has to be done after these chores. Most of the children spend more than 30 min a day doing homework. However, 51.9% of them also spend at least 30 min doing housework, and more than half of these children devote at least an hour for it. Intuitively one would think that the longer they spend time doing housework, the less time they will spend for doing homework; however, a crossed analysis of these two variables does not reveal any signicant link. It was only when we used the percentage from maximum deviation (PMD) statistic that we found a relationship of 34% between spending less than 30 min doing homework and less than 30 min doing housework. This counter-intuitive nding may be linked to the impact of the sources of energy. The fact that lighting is available may make it possible to do housework and still have time for homework. Conversely, the absence of lighting may reduce both the time spent doing housework and that doing homework.7 Thus, the PMD of 34%

for the relationship between spending less time doing housework and less time doing homework could be linked to the lack of lighting. The intuitive inverse relationship does not emerge to be signicant, because lighting makes it possible to do both types of activity. Thus our rst hypothesis that electricity allows children to do their homework in the evening and so to keep up with their school work could be valid. Of course, we are not trying to say that electricity is the only signicant factor in childrens school work. Huisman and Smits (2009) have highlighted the considerable role played by the level of education of the parents. In our sample, we found a signicant relationship between the level of education of the head of the family and the time children spend in doing homework (Table 6), but this relationship is not uniform. Thus children from households in which the head of the household never went to school or who did not attend beyond primary school devote similar amounts of time for doing homework (they are more likely to be in the 30 min1 h and 42 h groups), whereas the children from households, in which the head of the household had reached lower of higher secondary school, tend to be found in the intermediate groups with regard to the time devoted for doing homework.8 Finally, we should note that in 40.1% of cases it is women who help the children do their homework. As it is also women who spend most time doing housework, here too lighting appears to be crucial. Furthermore, a crossed analysis of the time spent doing housework and the gender of the child conrms (despite the absence of overall signicance of the relationship: p0.351) that girls devote more time to this than boys. This fact becomes clear as soon the time spent doing housework exceeds 1 h (Table 7): PMD values of 24% and 77% for girls versus boys for times spent doing housework between 1 and 2 h and of 2 h and more, respectively. These results tend to support our second hypothesis, i.e. that as housework is done mainly by mothers (or female of the household when children are not the children of the head of the household), but also by girls, electrication could have a benecial impact either by making it easier for the girls to do their homework in the evenings, or for the mothers to help them. This hypothesis seems to be more likely as in our sample only 13% of households headed by women involved women who had never been to school or who had only reached primary level, whereas 29.6% of them had attended lower secondary school, and 57.4% had attended higher secondary school. They were therefore capable of monitoring their childrens education. In order to check the pertinence of these hypotheses, the next section proposes an analysis of correspondence factors, in order to establish the proles of the groups of households.

7 This reasoning assumes, of course, that homework is evenly distributed over the days of the week, i.e. that the children do not do their homework one day and their domestic chores another day. However, given that domestic chores are usually done daily, in the case of tasks such as fetching water etc., even if homework is not spread out uniformly over the week, when it is time to do it, the problem arises as we have described.

8 This nding does of course deserve a much complete explanation, but this would take us far beyond the scope of this article.

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Table 4 Complementarity and substitution of sources of energy. Relative frequency (N) PMD Relative frequency (N) PMD Total

w2 13.2; df4; p 0.01

No electricity Have electricity Total w2 40.09; df 4; p 0.001 No electricity Have electricity Total No candles 22.8 (37) 35.2 (57) 58 (94) No parafn (0) 38.9 (63) 38.9(63) Use candles 53% 53% 5.6 (9) 36.4 (59) 42 (68) Total 28.4 (46) 32.7 (53) 61.1(99) 53% 53% 28.4 (46) 71.6(116) 100 (162)

Use parafn 100% 100%

100% 100%

28.4 (46) 71.6 (116) 100 (162)

PMD: percentage from maximum deviation

Table 5 School attendance and the activities of the children. Number Types of school attended Public school Private school Total Period spent on the homework Homework during the day Homework of the evening Total Time spent during homework Less than 30 min Homework 3060 min Homework 60120 min More than 120 min Total %

83 79 162 21 141 162 14 55 63 30 162

51.2 48.8 100.0 13.0 87.0 100.0 8.6 34.0 38.9 18.5 100.0 1.2 24.1 40.1 34.6 100.0 5.6 94.4 100.0 18.5 29.6 25.3 24.1 2.5 100.0

Member of the family who helps with homework No answer 2 Father 39 Mother 65 Others 56 Total 162 Child does housework Does not contribute Does contribute Total 9 153 162

Time the children spend doing housework None 30 Less than 30 min 48 3060 min 41 60120 min 39 +120 min 4 Total 162

4. Classication of households Factorial analysis of the correspondences makes it possible to identify the correspondences between various different variables, i.e. to determine the interdependence relationships between the modalities of certain variables. Three distinct groups of households emerge from this analysis (Table 8). Table A1 in the Annex shows the contributions of factors and of the modalities of the variables to the factors. The analysis of the relative contributions of the modalities of the variables to the rst factor makes it possible to identify four key variables: the type of housing, whether parafn is used or not, whether electricity is used or not and, nally, whether candles are used or not. Thus, the source

of the energy used plays a major role in structuring the groups. The analysis of the contributions of the modalities of the variables to the second factor identies other four key variables: the time spent doing homework, the time spent doing housework, the level of education of the children, and the type of school attended. The variables linked to schooling are therefore structuring variables of the second factor. Finally, the analysis of the contributions of the modalities of the variables to the third factor identies four variables: the gender of the head of the household, the gender of the child, the level of education of the head of the household, and who helps with the homework. The sociodemographic variables therefore make it possible to rene the classication. Table 8 shows the types of groups of households. It reveals three distinct types. Type A households are those that can be considered to be the poorest households in the sample. Most of them live in an adobe hut, do not have electricity, and tend to use parafn for lightening. As we have already pointed out, the type of housing is correlated with the level of income. Adobe huts correspond to the lowest income group. In these households, the children spend less than 30 min for doing homework. They also spend less than 30 min for doing housework. These households are headed by men. This group includes households headed by someone who has not gone beyond primary education. Most of the children are also attending primary school. Type B households are also households headed by men. However in this case, these are the richest households in the sample. Indeed, most of them live in masonry houses and have electricity. This group includes children who do housework for a period between 30 min and 1 h. Furthermore, it is the husband who helps with the homework. Furthermore, it is also in this group that we nd the households headed by someone with a much higher level of education. These children tend to attend private schools. Type C households in contrast are households headed by women. They display similar characteristics in terms of housing and energy use as type B households: a masonry house or brick hut, electricity. However, they are distinguished by gender specicity. Not only are they headed by women, but it is also in these households that we nd the highest proportion of girls attending school in the sample (46 out of 74). It is also in this type of household that women help the most with the childrens homework. In addition, the children in this group devote a large amount of time to both housework and homework. They tend to attend public school. This classication partially validates the rst hypothesis and strongly validates the second. First, if we compare type C with type A, in the households that have electricity (C) longer time is devoted for doing homework, whereas type A includes the

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Table 6 Relationship between the educational level of the head of the family and the time spent doing homework. Never attended primary school Relative frequency (N) PMD Lower secondary Relative frequency (N) PMD Higher secondary Relative frequency (N) PMD University Relative frequency (N) PMD Total (N)

w2 46,6; df9; p 0.001 Less than 30 mn homework 30 mn1 h homework 1 h2 h homework More than 2 h homework Total

28.6(4) 1.8 (1) 6.3 (4) 26.7 (8) 10.5 (17)

16% 83% 31%

14.3 (2) 10.9 (6) 28.6 (18) 20 (6) 19.8 (32)

45% 28%

57.1 (8) 85.5 (47) 52.4 (33) 20 (6) 58 (94)

2% 65% 66%

1.8 (1) 12.7 (8) 33.3 (10) 11.7 (19)

84% 39%

(14)100 (55)100 (63)100 (30)100 (162)100

PMD : Percentage from maximum deviation

Table 7 Relationship between the childs gender and the time spent doing housework. Relative frequency (N) PMD Relative frequency (N) PMD Total

w2 11.1; df10; p 0.351 Time spent doing housework No answer None housework Less than 30 min housework 30 min1 h housework 12 h housework 2 h and more housework Total
PMD: percentage from maximum deviation

Male gender 4.9 (8) 7.4 (12) 14.8 (24) 17.3 (28) 9.9 (16) 54.3 (88)

31% 24% 77%

Female gender 2.5 (4) 3.7 (6) 14.8 (24) 8.0 (13) 14.2 (23) 2.5 (4) 45.7 (74)

31% 24% 77%

7.4 (12) 11.1 (18) 29.6 (48) 25.3 (41) 24.1 (39) 2.5 (4) 100 (1 6 2)

households whose time spent in doing homework is shorter. The lack of electricity can play a role here. Of course, one can argue that type A households are also those within which the level of education of the head of the household is lower, which could explain why the children spend less time in doing homework. However, this explanation is not entirely convincing since when we compare groups B and C, we can see that the children in group C spend more time on their homework than those in group B, even though the level of education of the head of the household is lower. In contrast, most of the children in group A were attending primary school, which could also explain why they spend less time in doing their homework than the others, who tend to attend secondary school. However, when comparing groups B and C, this explanation is not enough to explain why the children in group C spend more time in doing homework than those in group B. It appears that both the level of education of the head of the household and that of the children certainly inuence the time spent on homework, but that other variables also have an inuence. In this respect, since the level of education of the head of the household in groups B and C, they have higher incomes, which allows them to access electricity, this promotes the ability of their children to do their homework. In this sense, access to electricity could contribute to reducing the mechanisms of social reproduction with regard to the levels of education, i.e. the likelihood that children will reach the same level of education as their parents. Furthermore, as we have indicated, the level of education of the head of the household variable and also the level of education of the children do not appear to be a structuring variable except at the level of the second factor in our typology, as is the variable of the type of school. This means that they are not decisive. In contrast, the energy variables are the most structuring variables of the typology. They therefore play a particular important role in our analysis.

The relationship between access to energy and school attendance is not simple, and so we cannot exclude the possibility that the electrication of homes does indeed facilitate childrens education. Second, by comparing type B and type C households, we can see that the difference between the two types lies in the gender specicity of type C versus type B. In particular, type C households include households headed by a woman, and are also households in which the children spend longer time for doing homework than in type B households, in which help with homework is provided by women and in which the children consist mainly of girls. As this type of household does not have any other particular distinguishing characteristics compared to type B, apart from the level of education of the head of the household, but here too this does not appear to be a strongly structuring variable, we can conclude that our second hypothesis is also validated. Electrication has a benecial effect either by making it easier for girls (who spend longer time doing housework than boyssee Table 7) to do their homework in the evening, or for mothers to help with homework in the evening (particularly in households headed by women). It is understandable that these girls are able to spend longer time doing housework as these are single-parent households headed by women. More demands are made on girls to help with housework, and consequently, electrication has a major impact on the ability of girls to keep up with their school work.

5. Conclusion Although only 300 rural districts have so far been electried in Madagascar, the ndings of our case study show that the electrication of homes does indeed affect the ability of children to keep up with their education, notably by allowing them to do their homework in the evening after school after doing whatever

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Table 8 Categories of the groups of households. Variable Type A Gender of Head of household Housing Candles Parafn Electricity Time spent doing homework Time spent in doing housework Level of education of the head of the household Schooling level of the child Type B Gender of Head of household Gender of child Housing Candles Parafn Electricity Type of school Time spent doing housework Help with homework Level of education of the head of the household Type C Gender of Head of household Gender of child Housing Electricity Type of school Time spent doing housework Time spent doing homework Help with homework Help with homework Educational level of the child Educational level of the head of the household PMD: percentage from maximum deviation.
n nn

Modality

Number

Deviation

w2

PMD

Local w2 test

Male Adobe hut Candles not used Parafn used No electricity Less than 30 min Less than 30 min Primary Primary Male Male Masonry house Candles used Parafn not used Electried Private school 30 min1 h Husband helps with homework University Female Female Brick hut Electried Public school 12 h 12 h Women helps with homework Other people help with homework Lower secondary Lower secondary

37 42 38 42 35 12 17 11 31 40 29 30 33 38 43 29 16 29 17 45 45 18 65 49 26 39 38 37 40 24

8 25 13 16 23 8 5 7 11 11 6 14 15 21 12 8 6 19 12 20 10 8 11 10 7 9 7 10 13 9

2.4223 37.663 6.825 9.407 42.538 16.305 2.249 14.401 5.458 4.481 1.363 11.197 12.384 27.074 4.842 3.076 3.034 32.72 28.348 15.268 3.046 6.597 2.057 2.6 2.167 3.018 1.644 4.066 6.012 5.381

58 96 72 94 74 80 21 78 47 79 29 53 60 81 100 36 20 65 86 69 26 73 49 27 33 28 21 35 42 53

nnn nnn nnn nnn nnn nnn n nnn nnn

nnn n nnn nnn nnn nnn nnn nn nnn nnn

nnn nnn nnn nnn nnn nn nnn nn nnn nnn nnn

nnn

Signicant at 10%. Signicant at 5%. Signicant at 1%.

housework that they have to do. Even if many other variables are involved in the education of children, access to electricity can, nevertheless, have the effect of reducing social reproduction with regard to education. Our study also shows that electrication helps to reduce gender inequalities by more specically allowing girls, who have to do more housework than boys, to do their homework in the evening, and also because in the single-parent households headed by a woman, it is the mother who helps with the homework, and it is precisely in these households that girls spend most of the time doing housework. Thus, in these households, the lack of electricity constitutes a major obstacle to the education of girls. However, our analysis also has several limitations. First of all, it is based on a sample including children of differing ages. A complementary study on more specic age groups would be necessary to provide a clearer understanding of the problem. Next, our analysis is based on a study of the data at a specic time. However, an analysis of the stakes involved in access to energy for the education of the children should put more stress on the period of accessibility to energy, in particular because the effects on education may be irreversible. If a household suddenly has access to electricity this may happen when for many children,

school attendance may already have been abandoned or too badly compromised for it to have the effect of allowing them to catch up. In addition, our analysis only concerned the effect of lamps, and did not take into account radio and television or other goods that used electricity. However, all these goods have both positive and negative effects on the childrens education. Our analysis should therefore be extended to these aspects. Furthermore, we reasoned as if the households were generally unrelated to each other. Relationships between households can in fact affect the education of the children, for example if children from a household that does not have access to electricity go and study with a classmate who does have electricity. Finally, we did not take into account the effect of electrication outside the family home (in the streets, squares, and shops). However, once again, these places can provide an alternative for children who do not have access to electricity at home.

Appendix A See Appendix Tabels A1.

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Table A1 Contribution of the variables and the modes of the variables to the factors Percentage Cumulative total Mode of the variables F1 23.7% 23.7% Coordinated Relative contribution F2 13.0% 36.7% Coordinated Relative contribution F3 10.7% 47.4% Coordinated Relative contribution

Gender of the head of household Male 0.004 Female 0.008 Gender of the child Male Female 0.003 0.004

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.08 0.44 0.06 0.04 0.41 0.15 0.13 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.73 0.01 0.70 0.00 0.64 0.63 0.73 0.73 0.84 0.85 0.00 0.16 0.18 0.00 0.00 0.36 0.01 0.06 0.00 0.23 0.01 0.09 0.07 0.07 0.03 0.03

0.122 0.236 0.114 0.131 0.278 0.068 0.283 0.063 0.170 0.254 0.224 0.225 0.198 0.126 0.115 0.138 0.038 0.560 0.032 0.051 0.104 0.062 0.009 0.000 0.558 0.034 0.018 0.267 0.294 0.506 0.140 0.216 0.024 0.328 0.131 0.077 0.585 0.585 0.225 0.243

0.25 0.25 0.16 0.15 0.02 0.00 0.18 0.05 0.02 0.46 0.27 0.10 0.01 0.02 0.05 0.00 0.00 0.09 0.01 0.01 0.04 0.04 0.00 0.00 0.37 0.00 0.00 0.25 0.02 0.20 0.09 0.28 0.00 0.26 0.11 0.02 0.41 0.41 0.47 0.48

0.158 0.311 0.140 0.164 0.680 0.442 0.224 0.028 0.371 0.088 0.038 0.337 2.244 0.360 0.136 0.504 0.53 0.221 0.031 0.042 0.032 0.021 0.145 0.055 0,306 0.033 0.161 0.017 0.334 0.209 0.177 0.039 0.151 0.308 0.032 0.680 0.477 0.477 0.105 0.110

0.43 0.43 0.24 0.23 0.12 0.14 0.11 0.01 0.13 0.05 0.00 0.23 0.02 0.19 0.07 0.06 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.05 0.04 0.11 0.00 0.09 0.00 0.03 0.03 0.15 0.00 0.05 0.23 0.00 0.12 0.27 0.27 0.10 0.09

Education level of the head of household Never been to school 0.563 Primary 0.776 Lower secondary 0.171 Upper secondary 0.058 university 0.655 Education level of the child Primary 0.146 Lower secondary 0.159 Upper secondary 0.073 Housing Wooden hut Brick hut Adobe hut Palm hut Masonry house Apartment Candles Candles not used Candles used Parafn Parafn not used Parafn used Electricity Not electried Electried 0.081 0.038 0.427 0.207 0.407 0.030 0.248 0.345 0.415 0.263 0.597 0.234

Time spent doing housework None 0.042 Less than 30 min 0.188 30 min1 h 0.226 12 h 0.048 2 h or more 0.029 Time spent doing homework Less than 30 min 0.672 30 min1 h 0.057 12 h 0.103 2 h and more 0.012 Helped with homework by Husband 0.311 Wife 0.043 Other individuals 0.140 Period for homework Day Night Type of school Public Private 0.252 0.037 0.058 0.061

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