Mother-tongue instruction and later labour market outcomes: evidence from a natural experiment in Ethiopia

Yared Seid

Applied Economics, 2022, vol. 54, issue 54, 6254-6271

Abstract: This paper offers empirical evidence on the effect of mother-tongue instruction in primary school on students’ later labour market outcomes. Since Ethiopia has adopted mother-tongue instruction after the 1994 Ethiopian education reform, many students who have attended primary school after 1994 are exposed to mother tongue instruction, resulting in a variation in exposure to mother-tongue instruction by birth cohort. In Amhara state, Amharic is adopted as medium of instruction both before and after the education reform whereas other states in Ethiopia have changed the medium of instruction after the 1994 reform. The duration of students’ exposure to mother-tongue instruction, however, varies depending on the state in which they have attended primary school since states in Ethiopia mandate a switch from mother-tongue to English instruction either in grade 5, 7, or 9. Exploiting these two plausibly exogenous sources of variations (across states and birth cohorts) and using data from the 2013 Ethiopian Labour Force Survey, we estimate difference-in-differences model. Estimates from our preferred specifications suggest that mother-tongue instruction in primary school improves later labour market outcomes, but the size of its effect decreases with the number of years an individual was exposed to mother-tongue instruction in primary school.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00036846.2022.2083067 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:applec:v:54:y:2022:i:54:p:6254-6271

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RAEC20

DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2022.2083067

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Economics is currently edited by Anita Phillips

More articles in Applied Economics from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().