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Microcredit, Child Education, and Health Outcomes: A Case Study from Ghana

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Financing Sustainable Development in Africa

Abstract

As an alternative to traditional banking, microfinance has been proved as a tool for reducing poverty and enhancing the livelihoods of its beneficiaries. The key objective of providing microcredit to poor households and low-income groups in society is to enable them to engage in productive activities that will generate some income to cater for their households of which children constitute an important segment. We adopt the treatment effect model on a sample of 500 small business operators from two Districts in the Western and Central Regions of Ghana, to estimate the effect of parental borrowing of microcredit on education and health outcomes of children. Our result suggests that clients’ children are regular in school and healthier than those of non-clients. The study recommends that microfinance institutions should integrate child education and health products into the traditional microfinance programmes. These products should target low-income households to promote their human capital development needs.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana

    James Atta Peprah

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  1. James Atta Peprah
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria

    Uchenna R. Efobi

  2. African Governance and Development Institute, Yaoundé, Cameroon

    Simplice Asongu

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Peprah, J.A. (2018). Microcredit, Child Education, and Health Outcomes: A Case Study from Ghana. In: Efobi, U., Asongu, S. (eds) Financing Sustainable Development in Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78843-2_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78843-2_13

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-78842-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-78843-2

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