The identification of the effect of wars on human capital tends to focus on the population of school age children at the time of the conflict. This paper introduces a methodology to estimate the effect of war on the stock of human capital by examining the changes in the presence of educated people after the Rwanda genocide.
It finds that the genocide reduced the stock of human capital in Rwanda severely. The before-and-after results show that highly educated individuals (i.e., those with primary education or more) are “missing” at a rate that is 19.4% higher than the less educated. Moreover, Rwanda’s average years of schooling is lower by 0.37 years. When comparisons with Uganda are made, these estimates more than double suggesting that, if anything, the previous finding were biased downwards. Interestingly, when the cross-sectional variation within Rwanda variation in intensity of genocide is exploited there is no evidence of statistically significant differences. This suggests that the losses in the stock of human capital due to the Rwandan genocide were aggregate in nature.
Key findings:
- From this paper’s perceptive, both displacement and mortality present a negative shock to the stock of human capital which we put under the common umbrella term of missing. Many studies choose to only carry out subnational or aggregate analysis. This paper does both, finding that the two present a very different picture. When sub-national comparisons are done, although there are fewer educated people compared to less educated ones, no significant differences were found in high vs low conflict areas, in either years of schooling in areas or ratio of educated to less educated cohorts.
- There are fewer educated people both at the subnational and aggregate level. Even although educated people are more likely to be missing in high conflict areas at the sub-national level, the rate at which they are missing is no different than the rate at which less educated are missing.
- In contrast to sub-national analysis, aggregate analysis suggests a rather stark effect of the Rwandan genocide. In terms of the ratio of educated to less educated cohorts, the before-and-after results within Rwanda show that highly educated individuals are missing at a rate that is 19.4% more than less educated individuals. When a differences-in-differences over time in Rwanda versus Uganda is carried out, 44.8% more are missing in Rwanda than Uganda. This is driven by the fact that instead of having fewer educated people, Uganda had fewer less educated individuals by as much as 26.8%. When average years of schooling is used as a measure, a similar story appears. The before-and-after results within Rwanda show that the average years of schooling is 0.37 years less. But at the aggregate level when a difference-in-difference over time in Rwanda versus Uganda is carried out, average years of schooling appear to be less in Rwanda by as large as 0.83 years of schooling.
- This is driven by the fact that instead of having lesser years of schooling, Uganda had 0.49 more years of schooling over the same period. Rwanda not only had fewer educated people, the loss of the educated cohort was in stark contrast even compared to its own less educated citizens and to its neighbours.Together these results reveal that there is much heterogeneity in the effects of the Rwandan genocide on destruction of human capital. The largest effects are found at the aggregate level, compared to the subnational level. In terms of average years of schooling lost, the smallest effect size is 0.37 years of schooling.
- The Rwandan genocide was destructive not only because it had large effects on schooling and health investment of the future generations (children). The genocide was not only destructive because of the more than 800,000 who have been known to be killed in a matter of just 100 days. It was destructive also because it lead to strikingly large loss of educated cohorts over and above the rest of the population leading to substantial destruction in Rwanda’s stock of human capital. Moreover, these effects are manifest at the aggregate level rather than at the subnational level, suggesting that the Rwandan genocide was not a subnational phenomenon, but a nation-wide catastrophe.