We have discovered education as a lead
predictor of poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa with evidence
from Sierra Leone based on the country’s integrated
household survey 2011. Noticeably, education expenditure
could have negative direct impact on welfare in the short run
even though it delivers long run positive effect through
indirect effect of covariates. This explains an inevitability of
policy trade-offs with the simultaneous decision making
problems a poor household faces, which would sometimes
have to reduce health spending in favour of child education.
Thus, careful policy is critical to ensuring optimal balance of
effects on general household welfare that derive from
household decision making problems.