Christianization without Economic Development: Evidence from Ghana

One of the most powerful cultural transformations of the 20th century has been the dramatic expansion of Christianity outside of Europe. This unique historical process was facilitated by vast Christian missionary efforts. In this paper, we study the economic effects of Christian missions in Ghana. We rely on six distinct identification strategies that exploit exogenous variations in Christian missionary expansion from 1828 to 1932. We find no association between Christian missions, whether Protestant, Catholic, Presbyterian or Methodist, and local economic development, whether during contemporary or colonial times. However, some results suggest that Christian missions might have had a positive effect on human capital formation. There might thus be contexts in which missions promoted human capital accumulation without this necessarily translating into local economic development

Georeferenced Data of Christian Mission Stations, Ghana (1752-1932)

The data describes Christian mission stations established in Ghana 1752–1932. Data is reported at an annual basis. For all 2,144 mission stations, the data includes station name, denomination, circuity, longitude, latitude, year of entry, exit, whether the station is a main or out-station, and whether it had a school attached. For sub-periods the data also includes information on the number of church members, attendance and seat capacity. The data was mainly sourced from ecclesiastical returns provided by the mission societies and published in the British Blue Books of the Gold Coast 1844–1932. The source represents a comprehensive census of missions. Various other sources were consulted to extend the data base to Ghana's first mission (1752), to include missions from German Togoland incorporated into Ghana after World War I, and to account for years, for which no Blue Books have survived. Mission stations were then georeferenced based on the place name where the mission is located. Coordinates were retrieved from NGA place name gazetteer as well as other sources. The data can be used to study patterns in and effects of Christianization in Ghana. The geographic coordinates of the mission stations allow researchers to flexibly link the data to other spatio-temporal databases. The data has been used in: Jedwab, R., F. Meier zu Selhausen and A. Moradi (2021). Christianization without economic development: Evidence from missions in Ghana.'' Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 190: 573–596

Educational Gender Inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Long-term Perspective

To what extent was the 20thcentury schooling revolution in sub-Saharan Africa shared equally between men and women? We examine trajectories of educational gender inequality over the 20th century, using census data from 21 African countries and applying a birth-cohort approach. We present three sets of findings. First, compared to other developing regions with similar histories of colonial rule and educational expansion, sub-Saharan Africa performed comparatively poorly in closing educational gender gaps (M-F) and gender ratios (M/F)over the 20thcentury. Second, in most African countries,theeducationalgender gap rose during the colonial era, peaked mid-century, and declined, albeit at very different rates, after independence. Southern African countries were remarkably gender equal, both in terms of gaps and ratios. French (former) colonies had smaller gaps but higher ratios than British (former) colonies, which we attribute to slower expansion of male education in the former. Both on the world-region and country-level, the expansion of male education is associated initially with a growing gender gap, andsubsequently adecline.We refer to this pattern as the “educational gender Kuznets curve”. Third, using data from 6 decadal cohorts across 1,177 African regions, we explore sub-nationalcorrelatesof educational gender equity. Better connected and urban regions witnessed lower educational gender inequality. In regions with large Christian mission stations in the early 20thcentury access to education was also less gender unequal, an effect that persisted into the post-colonial period.We also find that during the colonial era, cash cropcultivation was notconsistentlyassociated with larger gender gaps, whilefemale farming systems were associated with smallergaps. The sub-national cross-sectional results confirm the existence of an educational gender Kuznets curv

The Economics of Missionary Expansion:: Evidence from Africa and Implications for Development

How did Christianity expand in Africa to become the continent’s dominant religion? Using annual panel census data on Christian missions from 1751 to 1932 in Ghana, and pre-1924 data on missions for 43 sub-Saharan African countries, we estimate causal effects of malaria, railroads and cash crops on mission location. We find that missions were established in healthier, more accessible, and richer places before expanding to economically less developed places. We argue that the endogeneity of missionary expansion may have been underestimated, thus questioning the link between missions and economic development for Africa. We find the endogeneity problem exacerbated when mission data is sourced from Christian missionary atlases that disproportionately report a selection of prominent missions that were also established early

Growing Cities: Urbanization in Africa

Towns and cities existed throughout Africa’s past. However since the late twentieth century Africans are witnessing a historically unprecedented transition from living mainly in rural areas to residing in towns and cities. This chapters explains the key concepts of the urban growth process and sets Africa's urbanization into a historical and global perspective. The second part of the chapter explores the driving forces behind Africa's ongoing urbanization process, and asks whether economic development and urbanization have moved in tandem. Finally, welfare consequences resulting from rapid urban growth in Africa without sufficient economic growth are discussed

Urban Migration in East and West Africa: Contrasts and Transformations

Rural-urban migration and urbanization are interlinked key demographic features of Africa’s long 20th century. This chapter highlights five major transitions in East and West African rural-urban migration patterns in 1950–2020. First, by the mid-20th century, the main direction of African migration patterns shifted from rural-rural to rural-urban, leading to unprecedented urban growth rates. Second, this exceptional urban growth, primarily driven by rural-urban migration, has increasingly shifted toward urban centers growing out their own natural increase. Third, while colonial capital or port cities attracted most migrants, the expansion of the number of medium-sized cities suggests that urban migration has become increasingly diversified. Fourth, although young men dominated rural-urban migration, in particular in East Africa, urban sex ratios gradually equalized, indicating a shift from circular male migration strategies toward female urban migration and the permanent settlement of families. Fifth, urban growth appeared barely affected by rising urban poverty, slum formation, and overall economic performance. Comparatively, West Africa’s urban advantage over East Africa seems to be a difference of initial conditions. Pre-colonial West Africa was already more urbanized than East Africa and consequently maintained larger cities, saw an earlier equalization of urban sex ratios and stabilization of the urban population, and thus experienced earlier and more natural growth of its urban population