Flood exposure decreases the likelihood of receiving formal education: evidence from 34 countries

Flood exposure decreases the likelihood of receiving formal education: evidence from 34 countries | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article Flood exposure decreases the likelihood of receiving formal education: evidence from 34 countries Anna Palmer, Jill Baumgartner, Yuta Masuda, Jai Das, Alissa Koski, and 4 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-8563764/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Review Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Floods affected an estimated 1.6 billion people worldwide over the past two decades, and their impacts are projected to increase with climate change and population growth. Emerging reports indicate that these events disrupt children’s education, a foundational determinant of lifelong health and economic outcomes, yet systematic cross-country evidence on the effects of floods on education remains limited. In this paper, we collate 2.8 million education records from 34 countries that experienced floods between 2000 and 2018 and link them to high-resolution flood footprints from the Global Flood Database to quantify the effects of flood exposure on schooling attainment. Exploiting the natural variation in exposure to flooding among people living in the city or neighbourhood, we use fixed-effects regression models to estimate the effect of flood exposure on the likelihood of receiving any formal schooling among children of school-enrolment age, adjusting for sex and wealth status. We find that exposure to floods at ages 5-6y corresponds to a 0.25 percentage-point increase (95% CI: 0.09-0.41) in the likelihood of having no formal education (a relative increase of 2.4%), with more pronounced effects among girls and children in the poorest household wealth quintile. This effect is comparable to other well-documented climate-related impacts on schooling, and our estimates are likely conservative. Across the 34 countries studied, we estimate that flooding prevented approximately 800,000 children from receiving any formal education between 2000 and 2018, 76% of whom were female. Our findings demonstrate that floods may be undermining global progress toward educational attainment and gender equality goals. Scientific community and society/Developing world Earth and environmental sciences/Environmental social sciences/Climate-change impacts/Environmental health Scientific community and society/Social sciences/Education Earth and environmental sciences/Climate sciences/Climate change/Climate-change impacts/Governance Full Text Additional Declarations There is NO Competing Interest. Supplementary Files supplement.pdf Supplemental Figures & Tables Cite Share Download PDF Status: Under Review Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-8563764","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":573474933,"identity":"a23ce293-2dbd-4de0-bf3c-81ce14711ce1","order_by":0,"name":"Anna 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