This paper investigates whether teacher strikes affect student achievement
at the primary school level in South Africa. A cross-subject analysis
with student fixed effects is used to eliminate sources of endogeneity
bias at the school and student level. Results indicate that teacher strike
participation negatively affects learning for students in the poorest three
quarters of schools in South Africa. A negative effect size as large as
ten per cent of a standard deviation is observed. There is also evidence
that more marginalised students, both in terms of socio-economic status
and academic performance, are affected most negatively by strike action.
However, application of a technique by Altonji, Taber and Elder (2005)
indicates that it is not possible to rule out that measured strike effects
may be driven by omitted variable bias. The student fixed effects strategy
fails to adequately control for unobserved teacher characteristics that may
influence both a teacher’s decision to strike and student achievement.