Family background, school enrollments and wastage: evidence from Arab countries

Applying single and recursive bivariate probit models that utilize micro data sets of five countries, this paper examines the concatenation between school enrollments and family background. The empirical analysis captures considerable variations in the pattern of school enrollments and school wastage according to rural–urban locations and family background variables. Income gaps are powerful and interact with gender gap to produce differential school enrollment and wastage patterns. Access to credit partially redresses the adverse effects on school enrollments of negative household economic shocks. The findings call for more concerted government efforts to increase school enrollments and retention and to improve rural education particularly for females and the underprivileged.