School enrollment in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: Family economic well-being, gender, and place of residence

Abstract

This paper examines school enrollment of youth in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), to identify the roles of family economic well-being, gender, and place of residence in the school enrollment of children. The DRC experienced extremely adverse economic and political conditions during the 1990s. We use data from a 1999 survey that covered four provinces in the western portion of the country. Following an overview of the country's economic situation, the paper examines descriptive data on school enrollments of more than 9,000 youth aged 6-24. We then report results of multivariate analyses of school enrollment of more than 6,000 youth aged 6-14, controlling for family economic well-being, gender, and place of residence as well as a number of other factors. All three of the key variables are relevant to being in school, but in each case the impacts are dependent on the other two variables.