Urban and rural differences in primary school attendance: an empirical study for Tanzania

There is evidence of growing disparities in primary schoolingrates between urban and rural areas in Tanzania. This paperpresents empirical estimates for the determinants of primaryschool attendance in Tanzania for the early 1990s, and providesa comparison of attendance rates between the urban and ruralareas for a number of different age groups. All the estimatedmodels provide adequate fits to the data and many of the estimatedcoefficients are consistent with prior expectations. A statisticallysignificant differential in primary school attendance ratesbetween urban and rural areas is detected for the age groupsexamined. On the basis of our estimates, a large part of thedifferential is attributable to differences in observed characteristicswith an important role exerted by urban-rural differences inthe measure used to proxy household income.