Household National Health Insurance Subscription and Learning Outcomes of Poor Children in Ghana

Raymond Elikplim Kofinti (), Josephine Baako-Amponsah () and Prince Danso ()
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Raymond Elikplim Kofinti: University of Cape Coast
Josephine Baako-Amponsah: University of Ghana
Prince Danso: University of Cape Coast

Child Indicators Research, 2023, vol. 16, issue 1, No 16, 357-394

Abstract: Abstract This paper investigates the effect of poor households’ subscription to National Health Insurance Scheme on their children's school performance. Resource-poor households are often vulnerable to low investment in education. This is particularly the case where expenditure on health can trade off educational spending and compromise children’s academic performance. This paper argues that poor households’ subscription to National Health Insurance Scheme could reduce their health expenditure and consequentially increase educational spending to improve their children’s school performance. This proposition was investigated using data from the seventh round of the Ghana Living Standards Survey. The Instrumental Variable method was employed to address possible endogeneity problems between health insurance subscription and children’s learning outcomes. Additionally, the propensity score matching technique was used to validate the results. The results show that poor households’ subscription to National Health Insurance Scheme improves their children’s learning outcomes in Ghana. The results, therefore, imply that universal health coverage among the poor could enhance human capital development in developing countries.

Keywords: Universal health coverage; Ghana; Human capital development; Learning outcomes; National health insurance scheme; I130; I130 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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DOI: 10.1007/s12187-022-09980-y

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