Gone with the Flood: Natural Disasters and Children’s Schooling in Pakistan

Abstract This study investigates the impact of mass floods on children’s schooling in Pakistan. More precisely, it explores the effect of the 2010 floods that destroyed nearly 11,000 schools and left approximately half a million children out of school. Analyzing household data, we show that the flood resulted in children dropping out of school and plummeting education levels and literacy and school completion rates. Furthermore, the mechanisms behind these poor schooling outcomes are that employment and income levels fall drastically, and households adopt a self-insuring strategy—withdraw children from school and put them into child labor.