Intra-household constraints on educational attainmentin rural households in Papua New Guinea

Sean Ryan,* Gina Koczberski,* George Nicolas Curry* and Emmanuel Germis†

*Department of Planning and Geography, Curtin University, Perth, WA Australia.Email: g.curry@curtin.edu.au (G. N. Curry)

†PNG Oil Palm Research Association, Dami Research Station, West New Britain Province Papua New Guinea.

Abstract: This paper examines intra-household and socio-cultural factors leading to differential outcomes ineducational attainment by gender and birth order amongst smallholder oil palm households in Papua New Guinea.Not all children share equitably in the household resources allocated to education: females have lower averageeducation levels than males, and high birth order children have higher education attainment than lower birth ordersiblings, indicating preferential parental investment in sons and early born children. The findings demonstrate thatdespite households having regular access to relatively high incomes from oil palm and residing in close proximity toschools, primary school net enrolment rates remain significantly lower than those for East Asia and the Pacificregion, and the millennium development goal of universal primary education has not been met. This finding islikely to be the result of a combination of intra-household factors including gender power imbalances, low parentaleducation levels, the agency of youth in educational decision-making and the weakening attraction of educationas a means of improving income-earning potential.

Keywords: birth order, education outcomes, gender, household education strategies, inequalities, oilpalm

Introduction

Education plays a key role in development andpoverty reduction. Improving female literacyand education are also strongly linked to lowerfertility, reduced infant mortality, better childhealth and improved household economicstatus (Rowe et al., 2005; Boyle et al., 2006). InPapua New Guinea (PNG), since the 1970s, theadvancement of education and the goal ofuniversal primary education have been prioritiesin the national development plans of successivePapua New Guinean governments. Morerecently, the PNG government made a commit-ment to the United Nations MillenniumDevelopment Goals (MDGs) of UniversalPrimary Education (UPE) and greater genderequity by 2015: these were not met.Several studies have examined, at the school,

local and national levels, the barriers to educat-ing children in PNG. Very little attention hasbeen given to examining intra-household con-straints on children’s education. Yet, it has beenwidely reported in many developing countriesthat parental investment strategies are a major

determinant of education attainment of chil-dren, and contribute to educational inequalities,especially of girls, within households. Of thefew PNG studies that examined intra-householdconstraints on children’s education, parentaleducation levels and the gender of the childhave been found to be strongly associated withchild education levels (Gibson, 1999, 2000;Gibson and Rozelle, 2004). Gibson (2000)shows that a father’s education level is posi-tively correlated with both boys’ and girls’enrolments whilst a mother’s education levelis correlated only with that of her daughters.Regarding the influence of gender, Gibsonand Rozelle (2004) found that the addition ofmale children within a family significantlyreduced expenditure on adult goods, whilstfemale children had no impact, indicating agender bias against female children within thehousehold.

This paper examines the influence of birthorder and gender on educational attainment inrural farming households in PNG who haveregular and relatively good annual incomes.We draw on intra-household resource allocation

Asia Pacific Viewpoint, Vol. 58, No. 1, April 2017ISSN 1360-7456, pp27–40

© 2017 Victoria University of Wellington and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd doi: 10.1111/apv.12143

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models to explain the different education invest-ment strategies pursued by families and theinequalities in access to schooling amongstsiblings. Whilst neoclassical economic house-hold models help explain the education invest-ment strategies pursued by parents, the findingsindicate that they do not sufficiently acknowl-edge intra-household power imbalancesbetween men and women, and the agency ofchildren themselves in education decision-making.The study is based on fieldwork data col-

lected on the land settlement schemes (LSS) inthe oil palm belt of Hoskins and Bialla in WestNew Britain Province (WNBP) and Popondettain Oro province (Fig. 1), where inequities ineducational opportunities are beginning toemerge amongst related households. Theobjectives of the paper are twofold: first, to fillthe research gap in PNG and the Pacific regard-ing the differential investment of parents in theeducation of their children; and, second, tounderstand some of the factors influencingparental decision-making regarding children’seducation.

Education in PNG

The current state of education in PNG ischaracterised by low levels of educationalattainment and literacy, poor school attendanceand retention rates, and high levels of genderinequality. The average years of schooling re-ceived by people aged 25years and older is just3.9 years. This is comparable with the SolomonIslands at 4.5 years, but significantly lower thanother regional neighbours like Vanuatu, at6.7 years, and Fiji, 9.9 years (UNDP, 2013b,2014a, 2014b). PNG also has national literacyrates that are far below the regional averageswith just 62.4% of adults being literate com-pared with 94.4% for the region, and 70.8% ofyouths compared with the regional average of98.8% (UNDP, 2014a). School enrolment ratesare also low with a gross enrolment at primaryschool level of 74.4% and a secondary rate ofjust 44.4% (UNDP, 2014a).Educational statistics also show a strong gen-

der difference. Several studies find that PNGwomen are more likely to be illiterate, havelower levels of primary and secondary school

Figure 1. Map

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education and are less represented at the univer-sity level than men (e.g. Gannicott and Avalos,1994; Gibson and Rozelle, 2004; Kare andSermel, 2013). Data from the UNDP (2013a)reveal that a higher proportion of males thanfemales can read and write (69% comparedwith 57.3%) and just 6.8% of adult women havesecondary or higher level education comparedwith 14.1% of men. Males also make up themajority (62%) of students at university (DFAT,2012).In 2012, to overcome the financial difficulties

of sending children to school, the Tuition FeeFree (TFF) policy was introduced. The goalswere to eliminate school fees from elementarypreparation to Grade 10 and reduce school feecosts by 75% for Grades 11 and 12. Whilst therehas been a 17% increase in total enrolments, theenrolment gender gap has not decreased sincethe introduction of the TFF policy (Howeset al., 2014). This is perhaps surprising, giventhat female schooling is more cost sensitive thanmale schooling (Gibson, 2000; Herz andSperling, 2004; Glick, 2008). Gender-specificconstraints such as the opportunity cost of send-ing girls to school, security concerns over send-ing girls to distant schools and a general culturalbias against females may be negating the effectof the TFF policy. On the other hand, anecdotalevidence from several areas in PNG, includingour field sites, indicate that there have been longdelays in implementing the TFF policy and someschools have introduced other school-relatedfees to help cover the running costs for theschool. It therefore remains to be seen whatlong-term impacts the TFF policy will have oneducation levels in PNG.

Parental investment in education

Many studies provide evidence of selectiveinvestment in children’s education within house-holds (e.g. Hill and King, 1995; Song et al., 2006;Dammert, 2010; Zimmerman, 2012). Assumingthat parents are unable to send all of their chil-dren to school because of various constraints,they make selective investment decisions basedon factors such as gender, birth order, siblingcomposition and family size. These factors aretypically framed in the literature within neo-classical economic models, which understand

education decision-making to be based on finan-cial returns, or, gender theory, which considersthe cultural and social value of women in partic-ular societies and the role that women’s statusplays in investment decisions.

Economic models feature prominently withinthe development literature, as a method of fram-ing intra-household decision-making accordingto returns on investment. Becker’s (1976, 1981)oft-cited work on unitary household modelsregards households as undifferentiated units or‘small factories’ that behave like individualdecision-makers to maximise the utility of thehousehold. The central tenet of the unitarymodel is the ‘joint utility function’, or the notionthat resources are allocated within the house-hold to maximise household welfare rather thanindividual interests. Equity within the house-hold, therefore, depends to a large degree onthe household members behaving as ‘rational’actors working towards a common goal, as wellas altruism shown by the household headregarding the distribution of resources withinthe household.

The unitary model has been widely criticisedfor neglecting intra-household power andgender relations and place-based cultural beliefsand values in decisions over the distribution of,and access to, household resources. Much ofthe criticism has come from feminist theoryand from evidence that household decisionsdo not benefit males and females equally.Feminist scholars (e.g. Folbre, 1986; Hart,1992, 1997; Moore, 1992) argue that viewinga household as an undifferentiated unit neglectssignificant conflict and inequality within thehousehold along gender lines.

Gender

In education research there is strong evidence ofdiscrimination within households with parentalinvestment in schooling based on gender, birthorder and other family characteristics (Aslamand Kingdon, 2008; Rammohan and Dancer,2008). This is especially the case in resourceconstrained households. Many studies show thatboys typically receive preferential education in-vestment over girls. A major reason given for thisbias towards male schooling is the high opportu-nity costs associated with sending female chil-dren to school (Hill and King, 1995; Strauss and

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Thomas, 1995; Liddell et al., 2003; Song et al.,2006; Gibson and Sear, 2010). Female childrentend to spend more time on household choresand caring for younger siblings than male chil-dren, thereby making time sacrificed for femaleschooling a greater cost to the running of thehousehold than male schooling.Another reason cited for investing in a son’s

education rather than a daughter’s, especiallywhen money is scarce, is the influence of gen-der on earning potential. Males typically receivehigher wages (Song et al., 2006; Gibson andSear, 2010) and are more able to find jobs com-mensurate with their level of education thanfemales (Connell, 1997; Liddell et al., 2003;Gibson and Sear, 2010), thereby providinghigher returns on education investment.Conversely, girls stand to benefit proportionallymore than boys from policies that reduce finan-cial stress on households, such as free schooling(Herz and Sperling, 2004).Some also argue that low investment in

female education is related to girls marryingout of the family, which is prevalent in manydeveloping nations, and sons being more finan-cially accountable for aged parents (Hill andKing, 1995; Liddell et al., 2003). In patrilinealsocieties (such as in much of PNG) daughtersleave their parents’ household to marry, therebyreducing parents’ ability to fully recoup returnsfrom their daughters’ education, although, thereis a transfer of a portion of a daughter’sbrideprice to her parents on marriage. Anec-dotal evidence from PNG suggests thateducated women procure higher bridepricepayments than non-educated women becauseof the high social status afforded by education(see Ashraf et al., 2015 for similar evidence fromAfrica and Asia).

Family size, birth order and sibling composition

It is widely established that parental investmentin children’s education increases as family sizedecreases and parents invest more in the qualityrather than the quantity of their children (Blake,1981; Becker et al., 1990; Becker, 2004; Gibsonand Sear, 2010). The quality versus quantityargument stems from the resource dilutionhypothesis, which posits that given finiteresources, per child investment decreases as thetotal number of children increases. Numerous

studies support this hypothesis (Blake, 1981;Behrman and Taubman, 1986; Emerson andSouza, 2008; Dammert, 2010).Given such cost constraints on the education

of children, it is not surprising that a child’s birthorder and sibling sex composition influenceintra-household educational attainment of chil-dren. There is strong evidence that birth orderis one of the key determinants of educationlevels within households. Parents typicallyprioritise early born children with greater invest-ment in their schooling, reflected by first bornchildren having higher education levels thantheir later born siblings (Gibson and Sear,2010; Zeng et al., 2012). First born childrenbenefit from exclusive parenting and less com-petition for resources than later born children(Behrman and Taubman, 1986; Salmon, 2007).It is also argued that older children are a safer in-vestment than subsequent children as they aremore likely to survive into adulthood and havehigher reproductive value (Gibson and Sear,2010).Conversely, a common trend identified in the

literature (e.g. Glewwe and Ilias, 1996; Emersonand Souza, 2008; Dammert, 2010) is the re-moval of early born children from school to helpprovide support (financial or otherwise) foryounger siblings’ schooling. Older childrencommand higher wages than younger childrenand may therefore be sent to work if there are fi-nancial constraints within the household (Emer-son and Souza, 2008). Therefore, therelationship between birth order and educationlevels may be nonlinear.Sibling sex composition also has a bearing on

education investment strategies. Studies showthat having sisters can increase educationalattainment for other siblings, whilst havingbrothers can be a detriment to educationachievement (Morduch, 2000; Zeng et al.,2012). It is reasoned that several girls can sharedomestic work and reduce the burden on anyone member, and that girls are more likely thanboys to be removed from school to support otherchildren (Glewwe and Ilias, 1996; Emerson andSouza, 2008).This paper contributes to this literature by pro-

viding a case study of rural households that ex-amines generational differences in educationallevels and the influence of selective parentalinvestment on educational outcomes of

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household members. First, a background to thestudy site and methods is provided.

Study site and methods

The Hoskins and Bialla oil palm LSS in WNBPwere established in 1968 and 1972, respec-tively, and the Popondetta Oil Palm scheme inOro Province was initiated in 1976. LSS farmerswere recruited voluntarily largely from remoteand poor rural districts in other provinces andwere allocated individual leasehold blocks of6–6.5 ha. Smallholders harvest and sell theircrop on a 10–14day harvesting cycle, enablingeach LSS block to receive up to two paymentsper month.Since their inception, the LSS oil palm blocks

have undergone significant demographic andsocio-economic change. In Hoskins, populationdensity has risen from approximately seven peo-ple per block in the early 1970s to an estimated15 people per block in 2010 (Koczberski et al.,2012). It is now common for three generationsand two or more families to share the resourcesfrom a single oil palm block. Population growthis contributing to declining per-capita oil palmincomes (Koczberski et al., 2012).To investigate education levels, questionnaire

surveys and interviews were conducted in 2012amongst smallholder households at the threemain oil palm growing regions: Hoskins andBialla in WNBP, and Popondetta in Oro Prov-ince. In total, 279 households (approximately93 households in each site) were interviewed.Only LSS blocks with three or more householdsand regularly earning income from oil palmwere selected for the study. A disproportionatestratified random sampling procedure wasfollowed. Blocks were randomly selected froma list provided by the Oil Palm IndustryCorporation (OPIC) of 100 blocks they identifiedwith two or more co-resident households ineach site.

Results

School attendance rates and education levels

The state of human development on the LSSblocks is relatively high compared with manyparts of PNG. Broadly speaking, the education

attainment levels of adults and school atten-dance rates on the LSS blocks are good bynational standards, being higher than thenational averages (Table 1). School attendanceis a measure of the availability of education,and it is likely that higher attendance rates are,in part, because of better access to schoolingon the LSSs compared with rural and remoteregions of PNG. Nonetheless, attendance rateson the LSS blocks are low in comparison withprimary net enrolment rates of 95% for EastAsia and the Pacific region (UIS, 2011).

The significant difference in enrolment ratesbetween elementary and primary levels is likelybecause of the relatively late age at which chil-dren begin school. A late school commence-ment age is also evident in the largediscrepancy between PNG net and gross enrol-ment rates1. A late school starting age means thatolder children are more likely to drop out ofschool (discussed further below).

The retention rate from primary to secondaryschool is low (Fig. 2). Just 52% of male and46% of female children have completed primaryschool (to Grade 8). The largest proportion ofmales and females in the study sites finishschool after completing Grades 6 or 10, whichto some extent is an effect of the previous educa-tion system when primary school ceased atGrade 6 and junior secondary at Grade 10.Under the previous system, ‘two major bottle-necks’ were identified at Grades 6 and 10, inpart, because of families being unable to affordthe increase in school fees after these grades(Connell, 1997; UNESCO, 2000; PNGINA,2012). In 1995, primary school was extendedto Grade 8 to try and increase primary schoolretention rates, but because many people inthe survey sample finished school before thepolicy change the results are more likely toreflect the school system prior to the new policy.Interestingly, the third largest group of studentsfinish school on completing Grade 8. This per-haps indicates that because primary schoolwas extended, many students are staying anextra two years until they have finished what isnow the end of primary school.

With regard to generational differences ineducational attainment, an encouraging trend isthat second and third generation smallholdershave completedmore schooling than first genera-tion smallholders (Table 2). This general

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Table 1. School attendance rate for LSS children

Per cent of LSS children PNG national net enrolment rate*

Elementary** (n = 83) Primary*** (n = 165) Elementary** Primary***

Male 46.7 85.2 35.5 51.4Female 50.0 88.1 36.2 50.2Total 48.2 86.7 35.9 50.9

* Source: NSO (2013).** Ages 6 to 8 years.*** Ages 9 to 14 years.

Figure 2. Highest school grade completed by LSS residents aged 15–49 years by gender (n = 371). [Color figure can be viewedat wileyonlinelibrary.com]

Table 2. Average years of schooling for LSS residents aged 25 years and older in 2012

N LSS average (years) PNG national average (years)

Male Female Male Female

First generation* 189 165 7.0 5.9 n.a.Second and third generation 158 125 7.7 6.7 n.a.Total 347 290 6.9 3.9**

* First generation smallholders are the original leaseholders, from when the LSS was established, and second generation are thechildren of the original leaseholders.** Source: UNDP (2014b).

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improvement in education levels is in line withnational trends that show higher literacy ratesamongst youth (15–24years) than adults(UNESCO, 2011; ADB, 2012). That children bornon the LSSs are better educated than their parentsis not surprising as many of the first generationsmallholders were originally subsistence farmersfrom poor and remote areas of the country.What is surprising is that the educational

levels of the children born on the LSSs are notsignificantly greater than the national average,given their family’s access to regular andrelatively high oil palm income and close prox-imity to primary schools. On average, K13 791($US5625 at 15/5/11) can be earned annuallyfrom a 2ha plot of oil palm2. Given most lease-hold blocks have 6 ha of oil palm, average oilpalm income per block in 2011 could havereached K41 372 per annum. This income istypically shared amongst the two or threeco-resident households.It is possible that the lower than expected edu-

cational levels on the LSS may be partlyexplained by male household heads controllingthe majority of the oil palm income, the relativeprosperity of smallholder households and thelimited opportunities away from the leaseholdblock for household members to utilise theireducation to obtain waged employment. Thereis some evidence to suggest that increased reve-nue flowing to communities in PNG from largeand regular compensation payments or royaltiesfrom extractive resource projects weakens par-ents’ interest in educating their children (UNDP,2014a). Although the scale of revenue is starklydifferent between oil palm and mine sites, afew interviewees indicated that some youngpeople were more interested in earning a shareof the fortnightly income from oil palm thanpursuing education for employment purposes.

Constraints on sending children to school

Despite the potentially high incomes to beearned from oil palm, many families do experi-ence financial difficulties sending their childrento school. At the time of data collection, nu-merous delays in implementing the TFF policymeant that only a few schools had received ed-ucation subsidies from the government, andconsequently, only a small number of house-holds surveyed were not paying tuition fees.

Over 50% of households with school-age chil-dren reported difficulties sending at least someof their children to school. This lends weight tothe argument that increasing numbers ofco-resident households and higher populationdensities on LSS blocks are leading to decreasingper-capita incomes (Koczberski et al., 2012). Italso suggests that who controls household in-come matters. Empirical studies show childwellbeing to be more strongly associated with fe-male income than men’s income (Thomas,1994; Hart, 1997; Chowdhury, 2005; Cuesta,2006). Furthermore, given that school fees areknown to be a large financial outlay for house-holds, those with irregular and infrequent accessto oil palm income and land for other incomestrategies struggle to accumulate enough savingsfor school fees, especially those with severalschool-aged children. As might be expected, dis-tance from school was not a major constraint forthe majority of smallholders.

Educational attainment according to birthorder

The results suggest that parental decisions as towhich children to educate were related to theirbirth order. There was a tendency for a parentalinvestment bias towards early born over laterborn children, with the first four childrenattaining higher education levels than later bornsiblings, although not at a statistically significantlevel. However, a regression analysis controllingfor age, gender and wealth, yielded a statisti-cally significant (p=0.017) but weak negativecorrelation between birth order and educationlevel (Appendix 1). Age was found to have noeffect on educational outcomes across secondand third generation smallholders. There was ageneral decline in education levels for childrenborn after the third child (Fig. 3). Preferentialinvestment in earlier born children was alsosupported by interview data. As one parentstated in regard to which children are educated:

We give preference to those in the highergrades, if they are in Grade 8 or above, andwe are short of money then we will pull theyounger children out of school. … [however],if the children are persistent and wish to go toschool, then they will go (Bialla Smallholder177, May, 2012).

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The influence of child motivation on schoolattainment expressed in the quotation was men-tioned by several parents. The degree of interesta child shows in their schooling is a factor in thelevel of education they achieve. The results lendsupport to Maconachie and Hilson’s (2016)contention that teenage children can have ahigh degree of agency in education decision-making. In their example from Sierra Leone,teenagers were engaging in artisanal goldmining to fund their education. In PNG, severalstudies have shown a child’s lack of interest inattending school can be a significant factorexplaining school participation rates (e.g. ADB,2012; Kare and Sermel, 2013; NSO, 2013).The finding suggesting that older children re-

ceive preferential educational investment is con-sistent with much of the literature on birth orderin general (e.g. Gibson and Sear, 2010; Zenget al., 2012). Reasons for this are likely to be acombination of resource dilution, exclusive par-enting of the first born child and early born chil-dren being considered ‘safe’ investments byparents, having already progressed past the vulner-able stage of young childhood. In PNG, it is alsothe case that higher birth order children, especiallymale children, have more status within families.Interestingly, the results suggest that second,

third and fourth birth order children all haveslightly higher education levels than the first born

child and the overall trend for large familiesresembles a curvilinear relationship, rather thana linear one. An explanation for this trend is theargument that older children may be removedfrom school early to provide for the family whilsttheir younger siblings attend school (Glewweand Ilias, 1996; Emerson and Souza, 2008). Thisfits with the cultural expectations and genderroles in many parts of PNG (see below). For ex-ample, the first born son will leave school to assisthis father with the physically demanding task ofharvesting oil palm. Such a strategy not onlyaddresses the problem of household labourshortages experienced by many smallholders(Koczberski and Curry, 2003; Curry andKoczberski, 2004), but can also be legitimisedby the fact that the first born son has primary own-ership and management claims on the leaseholdblock following the death of his father, the lease-holder. Parents may therefore decide to invest inthe education of second and third born sons overthe first born who is to inherit the leasehold block.Moreover, by removing the first born son from

school, the parents may be reducing potentialfuture disputes amongst brothers over block in-heritance. First born sons’ inheritance claims tothe block are being contested increasingly byyounger married brothers, especially by youn-ger brothers who believe that they have investedmore labour in the upkeep of the block and

Figure 3. Average grade achieved by LSS residents aged 15–49 years according to birth order (n = 366). [Color figure can beviewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

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harvesting palms for their father (Curry et al.,2007)3. When inheritance is contested, owner-ship claims can be strengthened or weakenedbased on the amount of labour previouslyinvested in the block by an individual. If a firstborn son is relatively successful in educationand secures paid employment elsewhere, hisbrothers are likely to contest his inheritance ofthe block. Thus, parents might prefer to see theirfirst born son leave school early at 14years ofage (if starting Grade 1 at age 8) to work on theblock to ensure the process of inheritance issmooth and conflict free. It is likely that a hostof variables including the education level of par-ents, birth spacing, sibling composition (seeMorduch, 2000; Liddell et al., 2003; Gibsonand Sear, 2010) as well as factors such as chil-dren’s interest in schooling are related to small-holder education levels, and confound therelationship between birth order and education.Regarding birth order and birth spacing, inter-

view data suggested some households with sev-eral children born in close intervals, staggeredtheir children’s school enrolments until theysaved enough money to pay school fees. Thesestatements were supported by survey datawhich showed a general trend of later born chil-dren commencing school at an older age thanearly born children. The average age of a Grade1 child is approximately 8 years, meaning thatby the end of primary school (Grade 8), childrenturn 15years: an age at which some boys startlooking for work and some girls marry or be-come pregnant (interview data). The latter maypartly explain the high attrition rate of girls mov-ing to secondary school (Grade 9) (Fig. 2) (Ryanet al., 2013). Moreover, by 15–16years of age,many youths, especially boys, desire financialindependence and to participate in the emerg-ing consumer culture amongst young people.For LSS youth, enjoying access to mobilephones, DVD videos, portable music systemsand Facebook are de rigueur and part of theirworld. Leaving school, or irregular attendanceat school, enables them to harvest oil palm toearn money to meet the cash demands of con-temporary youth culture on the LSS.The above interpretation of birth order data

draws on economic theory and the joint utilityfunction to understand intra-householddecision-making. Whilst this analysis is usefulto a point in explaining education investments,

it has less to say about the effect of investmentbias on ongoing tensions within families. Duringfieldwork, many interviewees related stories ofdisputes amongst family members, mainlybrothers, regarding parental decisions about ed-ucational investments that some believed disad-vantaged them. In one interview, a youngmarried man, Simon, told how his schoolingceased at Grade 10 so that his younger brothercould go to university. He reasoned that his lifechances had been stymied (unlike his brotherwho has more chance of gaining non-farmemployment) because of his parents’ decisionto invest in his brother’s education over hisown. For this reason, Simon felt that he shouldinherit the leasehold block. Thus, parental in-vestment bias in educational opportunities has,in some circumstances, led to conflicts betweenbrothers, which intensify when the father diesand inheritance of the lease is being negotiated.

Educational attainment by gender

The study also reveals that gender has a signifi-cant influence on parental investment in educa-tion. There is a clear investment bias towardsmale children, even though most parentsclaimed that they did not discriminate betweensons and daughters in educational opportuni-ties. First, second and third generation malesall have approximately one more year of school-ing than females, and older women have thelowest education levels overall (Table 2). The2000 PNG national census also shows thatmales have higher educational attainment thanfemales across the three study sites (NSO, 2004).

Furthermore, female smallholders do not farewell in comparison with males when the pro-portions completing individual grades, espe-cially in the categories of ‘no schooling’ and‘tertiary’ education are examined. Almost 10%of females have no formal education at all com-pared with roughly 4% of males, whilst nearly8% of males complete tertiary level educationcompared with just 2% of females (Fig. 2). Therelatively high proportion of women with no orvery little education means that a significantminority of women are likely to be illiterate.

In PNG, girls engage in more domestic la-bour, such as housework and caring for youngerfamily members, than their male siblings,

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meaning that time allocated to female schoolinghas a higher net cost to the household than maleschooling (PNGINA, 2012). It is also the casethat in patrilineal societies, as in most of PNG,daughters leave their parents’ household tomarry thereby decreasing investment returns tothe parents (although, as stated above, therecan be remuneration to a bride’s parentsthrough brideprice). An ADB (2012) reportclaims that the main reason for female childrennot attending school in PNG is the inability topay school fees, whilst for males it is lack of in-terest. This seems to confirm the disproportion-ate opportunity cost of female schooling inPNG. Gibson (2000) also concludes that a girl’seducation in PNG is more cost sensitive than aboy’s education, which is evident from the largestgender gaps being in the lowest income groups.However, focusing solely on intra-household

decision-making according to economic modelsneglects the wider social and culturalconstraints on educating women, as well assome of the benefits of educating women.Culturally defined gender roles and social normsalso influence parental decisions regarding maleand female education in PNG (Kare and Sermel,2013). Fox (1999) argues that women’s subordi-nate position within PNG society is the singlemost significant factor influencing girls’ partici-pation in education.Investing in sons’ rather than daughters’

education in the study sites appears symptom-atic of wider discrimination against girls withinMelanesian culture and women’s limited accessand control over household resources, espe-cially income. Gender inequality is pervasivein PNG. Women experience very high rates ofdomestic violence, have fewer economic oppor-tunities than men, have high maternal mortalityrates and lower life expectancy than men. Theyalso experience inequalities within the home,which limits their access to household incomeand participation in decision-making (Overfield,1998; Koczberski, 2007; Macintyre, 2008;UNDP, 2014a). With regards to the study sites,there is a gendered division of labour thatdefines the types of agricultural and domestictasks as well as the level of remuneration thatmale and female smallholders receive from oilpalm production (Koczberski, 2007). Womentake on the burden of most of the childcare,household subsistence gardening and domestic

tasks. Men harvest oil palm bunches whichaccount for about 85% of the harvested crop,and therefore they typically control how thisincome is distributed. Intra-household powerimbalances between men and women are veryimportant in explaining the investment bias inmale education.

Summary and conclusion

This study has shown that there is competitionfor educational opportunities within the family.The significant differences in educational oppor-tunities and attainment by birth order and gen-der within the family are often contested,particularly by males. The main findings regard-ing education show that average adult educa-tion levels on the LSS blocks are higher thanthe national average but still low consideringthat most smallholders do not finish primaryschool and the retention rate from primary tosecondary school is low. Adult males havehigher education levels than females, and fe-males are more likely than males to have no ed-ucation or no tertiary education. Lower birthorder children (after the fifth born) in large fami-lies have less education than higher birth orderchildren, and all children have higher levels ofeducation than their parents.Whilst neoclassical economic models and

socio-cultural arguments explain the educa-tion investment strategies pursued by parents,neither is sufficient on its own to provide a fullexplanation. This paper recognises that thereare multiple logics operating within householdsand that much of the intra-household resourceallocation models used to understand parentaleducation investment strategies do not ade-quately acknowledge intra-household genderedpower imbalances, and the agency of childrenthemselves, especially youths, in educationdecision-making. The latter is particularly impor-tant in the PNG case study where a late startingage at school results in children being 14–15years or more by the end of primary school –an age when children are beginning to maketheir own life choices and where parents’ influ-ence over their children is waning. Moreover,as parents themselves indicate, when a child ispersistent in wanting to attend school they willtry to support them, but when a child is

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36 © 2017 Victoria University of Wellington and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd

uninterested, then there is no incentive forparents to continue paying school-relatedexpenses. The ADB study (2012), noted earlier,also claimed that the main cause of male chil-dren not attending school was a lack of interest.Similarly, NSO (2013) survey data show that atthe national level, 23% of interviewees withno formal education claimed ‘no interest’ astheir reason for never attending school. Thus,greater understanding is needed of the factorsinfluencing the decisions of youths to leaveschool at the end of primary school, especiallyin areas where distance to secondary schoolsis not a constraint on access and where house-hold incomes are relatively high.The question then follows of why, in one of

the most prosperous agricultural regions ofPNG where families have good access toprimary schools, the MDG of universal primaryeducation has not been met? This is troublinggiven that economic growth and improvementsin infrastructure leading to reduced travel timeto the nearest school should boost primaryschool enrolment rates (Gibson, 2000). Oneanswer may be women’s limited control overhousehold income and the ‘vicious circle’ ofgender inequality in education referred to byGibson (2000). Girls’ enrolment rates are posi-tively associated with the education levels oftheir mothers. This can create a vicious circlefor female education, because if adult womenhave low levels of educational attainment thenit is likely that their daughters will also havelow educational outcomes. If men continue tocontrol the majority of oil palm income and itsdistribution, and entrenched cultural gendernorms persist, it is likely that this generationalcycle of gender inequality in education willcontinue. Finally, as indicated earlier, peopleliving in rural resource-rich areas like the oilpalm developments or near mine sites, may notsee the value of education when a regular in-come can be earned on the family farm or fromroyalties. As the UNDP (2014a) report suggests,this is a topic requiring further research to deter-mine whether educational outcomes are higherin areas where extractive industries are present.

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank the reviewers for theirthoughtful comments on the paper. We are also

grateful for the assistance provided by re-searchers from PNG Oil Palm Research Associa-tion (OPRA), extension officers at Oil PalmIndustry Corporation (OPIC), local research as-sistants and the smallholders who gave theirtime to be interviewed. Peter Allen kindly pro-vided statistical advice, and thanks to JakeSchapper for redrawing the map.

Notes

1 Net enrolment refers to the proportion of children en-rolled in school who are the correct enrolment age forthe corresponding school grade. Gross enrolment refersto the number of children, regardless of age, enrolled ina certain school grade divided by the total number ofchildren in the relevant school age group. A significantdifference between net and gross enrolments indicatesa high proportion of over age/late starting students(NSO, 2013).

2 This figure is based on the average 2011 price of oil palmof K344.77 per tonne and an average smallholder yieldof 20 tonnes/ha.

3 In 2006, OPIC began promoting the efficacy of making awill among LSS smallholders to address the increasing prob-lem of disputes among family members (largely male sib-lings) over the inheritance of the leases (Curry et al., 2007).

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Appendix 1. Regression analysis on birth order and education controlling for age, gender and wealth.

Correlations

Highest grade achieved Age Gender Wealth Birth order

Pearson correlation Highest grade achieved 1.000 .010 �.121 .082 �.110Age .010 1.000 �.035 �.089 �.206Gender �.121 �.035 1.000 .030 .056Wealth .082 �.089 .030 1.000 �.077Birth order �.110 �.206 .056 �.077 1.000

Sig. (1-tailed) Highest grade achieved . .422 .010 .059 .017Age .422 . .254 .045 .000Gender .010 .254 . .285 .143Wealth .059 .045 .285 . .070Birth order .017 .000 .143 .070 .

N Highest grade achieved 366 366 366 366 366Age 366 366 366 366 366Gender 366 366 366 366 366Wealth 366 366 366 366 366Birth order 366 366 366 366 366

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