The origins of formal educational and gender inequality in Zambia, 1924–1990

Abstract

This paper examines the origins of formal education in colonial Zambia and its long-term consequences for educational attainment and gender inequality. Combining novel panel data on the location of missionary stations and mission school enrolment by gender and missionary society from 1924 to 1953 with contemporary data from the 1990 Zambian census, we ana-lyze the long-term effects of missionary education. Our results are threefold. First, we document that despite substantial schooling expansion after the mid-1930s, overall enrolment remained low and uneven between the sexes at the end of the colonial period. Although Protestant missions provided more equal gender access than Catholic schools, this was insufficient to close the overall gender inequality in education by the end of the colonial period. Second, we find that historical missionary presence is associated with higher educational attainment post-independence. We document that the impact of early mission density on educational outcomes was smaller for early cohorts compared to the more substantial effects of later mission density on later cohorts, with no significant difference between Protestant and Catholic mission activity. Third, we find that the difference in years of education between males and fe-males has narrowed post-independence, most prominently in areas with historically more mission activity.