[WITHDRAWN] The Relationship between Caregivers' Gender Norms and Adolescents' Attitudes Towards Schooling Among Adolescent Girls at Risk of School Drop out to Engage in Child Labor in Ghana

Introduction: One of the primary causes of the gender gap in education in Sub-Saharan Africa is traditional gendered norms and beliefs that favor boys over girls in educational opportunities, performance, expectations, and future goals. Gender norms places the demand for working more household duties on girls than boys, and that makes the labor opportunity costs (LOC) of going to school much higher for girls. Gender norms are also demonstrated through traditional isolation practices that hinder travel to schools, families' preference for investing in boys' education, and the gendered allocation of household duties. This study guided by the social impact theory and parental ethnotheories, we examined whether parental gender norms influence adolescent girls’ attitude toward education and schooling among adolescent girls at risk of school drop out to engage in child labor in Ghana using baseline data from an NIH-funded ANZANSI study.

Methods: We used baseline data from a study longitudinal study, called the Anzansi study funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). This study seeks to address the increasing numbers of unaccompanied minors migrating from rural to urban areas searching for better economic opportunities in northern Ghana. The study incentivized families to keep their adolescent girls in school via economic empowerment intervention, and used multiple family group intervention to effectively address gender norms and perceptions on child labor, specifically the value of education for girls. Using a cluster randomized control design, we recruited 100 adolescent girls, ages 11-14, who are at risk of dropping out of school from 10 junior secondary schools(equivalent of a US middle school level), and their caregivers (n=10 schools; n=100 adolescent girls and their caregivers) in northern region, one of the poorest regions in the country.

Results: Using caregivers’ responses to gender norms responses and adolescent girls’ responses to their attitudes towards school, we found that adolescent girls with caregivers having more progressive gender norms have increased confidence in their academic capabilities and abilities.

Conclusions and Implications: Findings have shown that parental beliefs and attitudes on gender norms have increases adolescent girls confidence and attitudes towards their education. As gender norms are significant barriers to school attendance and completion, and a factor in prioritizing education for boys over girls, creating family-level assets targeted to cover school expenses for girls while encouraging families to discuss children’s roles, gender norms, and risks associated with child labor are critical to ensuring equal opportunities for girls. Hence, it is critical to design more interventions that work closely with families on strengthening family supportive processes and changing gender norms beliefs and attitudes, in order to increase educational opportunities for girls.