Parental Decision-Making Power, Gender Dynamics, and Educational Access: Evidence from the Democratic Republic of Congo

Parental Decision-Making Power, Gender Dynamics, and Educational Access: Evidence from the Democratic Republic of Congo | 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 Parental Decision-Making Power, Gender Dynamics, and Educational Access: Evidence from the Democratic Republic of Congo Gracy Tsongo Mungosy This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-9317449/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Review Version 1 posted 5 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Parental decision-making power within households plays a critical role in shaping children’s educational opportunities, with direct implications for Sustainable Development Goals on quality education (SDG 4) and gender equality (SDG 5). In low-income and gender-unequal contexts such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, persistent disparities in school access and delayed enrolment raise concerns about how intra-household power dynamics influence resource allocation to education, yet empirical evidence on this mechanism remains limited and fragmented. Existing studies largely focus on household income or parental characteristics, paying insufficient attention to how relative decision-making authority between mothers and fathers affects schooling outcomes and through which channels these effects operate. To fill this gap and provide actionable insights, the present study investigates the influence of parental decision-making power on education-related expenditures and children’s access to primary school at the legal enrolment age. Using data from the 2012 National Household Consumption Survey, parental decision-making power is proxied by relative income contribution, while educational investment is measured as the share of household expenditure devoted to schooling. The results show that greater maternal decision-making power is associated with higher educational spending and an increased likelihood of school attendance at age six, whereas greater paternal dominance is associated with delayed school entry. Moreover, education-focused resource allocation appears to mediate the relationship between women’s decision-making power and children’s educational access, highlighting the important role of gender dynamics in shaping household educational decisions. These findings suggest that strengthening women’s economic and decision-making autonomy may contribute to improving children’s access to education in fragile and low-income settings. JEL Classification : D12, D13, I21, O55 Social science/Development studies Business and commerce/Economics Social science/Economics Social science/Education Social science/Social policy Social science/Sociology Collective choice model decision-making power Democratic Republic of Congo intra-household allocation of resources primary education Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Supplementary Files 01Dataset.xlsx 02Codebook.docx 03Dofile.do 04Methodsnote.docx 05AppendixADescriptionofVariables.docx 06AppendixBVariableConstructionandDataTransformations.docx Cite Share Download PDF Status: Under Review Version 1 posted Reviewers invited by journal 05 May, 2026 Editor assigned by journal 05 May, 2026 Editor invited by journal 22 Apr, 2026 Submission checks completed at journal 21 Apr, 2026 First submitted to journal 21 Apr, 2026 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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