Isaac Addai

Religious Affiliation, Marital Processes and Women's Educational Attainment in a Developing Society

This study uses data from the 1993/94 Demographic and Health Survey (GDHS) to explore the interrelationship between religious affiliation and womens educational attainment in one developing country - Ghana. To capture the interplay between state, religion and female educational achievement, logistic regression techniques were employed to assess whether religion influenced the acquisition of some education among women born during three different time periods: 1944-58, 1959-68, and 1969-78. The findings from the bivariate models confirm the importance of religion in educational attainment in Ghana. Similarly, in the multivariate analysis we observed that religion had an impact on whether a woman had an education or not, although the effects were not significant for access to higher education. Besides religion, childhood residence in an urban area, and later age at marriage were all associated with some schooling and higher levels of education. The policy implications of the findings are discussed

Ethnicity and sexual behavior in Ghana

Using data from the 1993 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey, this study explores the relationship between ethnicity and sexual behavior: having sex before age 17 and premarital sexual experience. All ethnic groups show substantial sexual experience before age 17 and premarital sexual engagement. Logistic regression analyses reveal that in general ethnicity influences the behaviors studied, especially for ever-married women. The data suggest that groups that practice matrilineal and patrilineal systems show differences in the likelihood of having sex before age 17. Contrary to expectation, there is an inverse relationship between education and sexual experience before age 17. The findings highlight the importance of group-specific programs in Africa.