The years of schooling in Malawi varies across birth months substantially and consistently
at least over thirty years. Those who were born in the second half of each
year have 1.6 years longer of schooling than those who were born in the first half of
each year. The difference is substantial given that the average years of schooling in
Malawi is about six years. The availability of food across months and the variation
of birth weight across birth months do not match the variation of years of schooling
across birth months. Compulsory education law does not explain this pattern either.
To explain the pattern of years of schooling across birth months, we propose a selection
mechanism hypothesis that among individuals who was born in the second half of each
year, only those who have high innate ability could survive the malnutrition during
pregnancy and the most vulnerable periods after the birth. This implies that those
who were born in the second half of each year and those who are alive now have higher
innate ability on average. Because of higher innate ability, such individuals had longer
years of schooling than other individuals. To prove the validity of our hypothesis, we
first show that the number of individual who were born in the second half of each
year and who are alive now is 50 percent lower than the number of individuals who
were born in the first half and are alive now. Second, using a novel approach used by
Gørgens, Meng and Vaithianathan (2012), we regress each person’s years of schooling
on his or her parents’ birth months controlling each person’s birth month and parents’
education. We show that the years of schooling of children whose parent were born in
the second half of each year is longer than those of children whose parents were born
in the first half of each year. This result shows that individuals who were born in the
last half of each year survived sever malnutrition and have innate ability.