COLLEGE STATION, TX – Achieving an education in the poorest countries is difficult, and girls may face traditional social norms that further limit their chances for education and the range of occupations to which they can aspire. In Somalia, literacy rates and women’s participation in the labor force are among the lowest in the world.
Dr. Danila Serra describes an intervention targeting school children in Somalia where male and female college students visited elementary schools with the aim of increasing educational aspirations and reducing gender inequality in “Female Role Model Impact on the Gender Attitudes of Children: Evidence from Elementary Schools in Somalia.” While surveys after the role model intervention did not show an impact on the children’s education aspirations, they did show that visits by female college students significantly shifted gender attitudes toward equality for both boys and girls. Serra is a Bush School of Government & Public Service and Department of Economics faculty member and a Mosbacher Research Fellow.
The Takeaway is a publication of the Mosbacher Institute for Trade, Economics, and Public Policy at the Bush School at Texas A&M University.
