In their recent publication for Nature, “Religion and educational mobility in Africa,” PSTC economist Stelios Michalopoulos and co-authors Alberto Alesina, Sebastian Hohmann, and Elias Papaioannou illuminate the persistent interfaith educational disparities present across postcolonial Africa, finding that Christian communities have experienced disproportionate educational progress and economic mobility opportunities compared to their Muslim counterparts. 

While African people, governments, and international development organizations have long advanced educational access as a means of promoting long-term economic mobility, thus far, researchers have largely failed to consider how such economic gains break down across specific religious identities.

“Although there is abundant evidence of the role of education as a vehicle of economic mobility particularly in low-income contexts, its differential role across faiths has not been ascertained,” says Professor Michalopoulos, explaining the impetus for the project. “Given the historical roots of education in Africa tightly linked to the expansion of missionary activity and conversion to Christianity, it seems that the social returns to education might be quite different across religious groups.” 

Using census data collected from 2,286 districts across 21 countries, Professor Michalopoulos and his co-authors sought to test this thesis by further examining the relationship between religious affiliation and economic mobility. Through this research, they concluded that Christians have not only experienced better mobility outcomes than Traditionalist and Muslim populations, but that these intergenerational disparities persist even among families living in the same district with similar economic and family backgrounds. 

The researchers also identified religious segregation as a core predictor of intergenerational mobility. Specifically, the intergenerational mobility gap between Muslim and Christian populations tended to be larger in communities where Muslim residents constituted significant majorities, while this disparity was less stark for Muslim families living in areas where they constituted a smaller segment of the population. 

“To the extent that education is perceived as a vehicle of Christianization, this might help explain the lower take-up rate of educational opportunities in predominantly Muslim communities,” says Professor Michalopoulos. 

Likewise, the researchers found rates of educational mobility to be lowest in majority Muslim communities that experienced lower rates of internal migration, while Christian populations were generally more likely to migrate to areas with higher rates of economic opportunity. 

“We really do not know why Christians move at a higher rate,” Professor Michalopoulos says. “One conjecture is the differences in labor markets, with Muslim communities depending more heavily on eponymous interactions to secure jobs and do business in general, whereas Christians being more educated can rely more on market-based interactions.” 

Considering the critical role that educational programming plays in improving rates of intergenerational mobility, these findings demonstrate the ongoing importance of ensuring that all religious populations are experiencing these long-term economic gains at equitable rates throughout the continent.

“Our findings highlight the need to understand better the private and social returns to schooling across faiths in religiously segregated communities and to carefully think about religious inequalities in the take-up of educational policies,” conclude the paper’s authors. 

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