Education, public employment and social mobility in postcolonial Africa

在每个国家，政府如何分配公共资源都是一个政治问题，但在贫穷和政治上支离破碎的社会中，往往会引起特别大的争议。无论是以种族、地区还是阶级为基础，许多人都认为政客们会把公共资金花在自己的社区或选民的利益上，无论是在政府工作、教育还是其他服务上。特别是在非洲文学中，许多学者将糟糕的公共资源分配与各大洲令人失望的殖民后经济表现联系在一起。人们经常辩称，由于非洲国家在独立时缺乏强大的非洲所有的私营企业，国家而不是市场成为社会流动性和政治利益的主要仲裁者，而不是决定哪些个人或群体受益的技能。结果，政府在错误的服务类型上浪费了资金，雇佣了不适合自己工作职责的人，并在获得资源的问题上引发了种族和地区冲突。这些问题往往与种族异质性有关。一旦掌权，领导人就会利用国家庇护来奖励来自自己民族社区的盟友和支持者，而不是以牺牲失利群体的利益为代价。然而，关于资源分配的理论文献仍然比仔细检验这些理论的经验文献更多。为了解决这一证据差距，我的研究着眼于特定次区域的一种特定类型的公共部门再分配：肯尼亚、坦桑尼亚和乌干达公共部门员工的工资。大约三分之一的政府支出以工资的形式到达非洲私人家庭手中。什么样的人拥有这些有吸引力的公共部门工作，这些公共部门员工的工作条件随着时间的推移发生了怎样的变化？调查发现，在这三个重点国家，获得公共部门工作的机会比通常认为的更注重功绩，而且就业机会在各地区和不同种族之间分布相对公平。这些国家的政府没有雇佣大量技能低下的工人，因为大多数公职人员都是教师或其他训练有素的服务提供者，因此他们的职位要归功于政治家或其他领导人的庇护。这些员工的工资在独立后下降，如果我们考虑到他们高于平均教育水平，今天的水平与私营部门大体相当。我设立这一奖学金的主要目的是通过在学术期刊上发表文章和撰写针对更广泛受众的博客和文章，向学术界和其他领域的受众传播这些研究成果。主要的优先事项将是与东非的学者、政策制定者和政策组织分享研究结果，因为东非的这些辩论特别突出。作为公共就业工作的延伸，相关研究研究教育机会的政策及其如何影响教育的传播。鉴于中等教育和高等教育之间的紧密联系以及获得公共部门工作的机会，各国政府有一定的权力通过重新平衡教育机会的政策来塑造就业机会。因此，教育也是政府减少或放大群体不满情绪的主要手段之一。我的研究着眼于教育机会随时间的分布，以推断教育不平等是在增加还是在减少，以及原因。该研究金的第二个目的是制定这一较新的研究议程，将目前正在起草中的几篇论文提交到出版阶段，并与从事相关主题工作的其他学者或从业人员建立联系。

How governments distribute public resources is of political concern in every nation, but tends to be particularly contentious in poor and politically fragmented societies. Whether on an ethnic, regional or class basis, many presume that politicians will spend public funds to the benefit of their own communities or constituencies, be it on government jobs, schooling or other services.In the Africanist literature especially, many scholars have linked poor public resource distribution to the continents disappointing postcolonial economic performance. It is often argued that because African countries lacked strong African-owned private firms at independence, the state rather than market became the main arbitrator of social mobility and political interests rather than skills determined which individuals or groups would benefit. Consequently, governments wasted money on the wrong type of services, hired people poorly suited to their job responsibilities, and inflamed ethnic and regional conflicts over access to resources. These problems are often associated with ethnic heterogeneity. Once in power, leaders use state patronage to reward allies and supporters from their own ethnic communities, at the expense of the loosing groups.However, the theoretical literature on resource distribution remains larger than the empirical literature that carefully tests such theories. To address this evidence gap, my research looks at one specific type of public sector redistribution in a particular sub-region: salaries paid to public sector employees in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. Roughly a third of government expenditure reaches private African households in the form of salaries. What type of people hold these attractive public sector jobs and how have working conditions for these public sector employees changed over time?It found that access to public sector jobs in the three focus countries has been more merit-based than often presumed, and that job opportunities are relatively equitably spread across regions and ethnic groups. These governments did not employ armies of poorly skilled workers who owed their position to the patronage of a politician or other leader, as most public employees are teachers or other trained service providers. The salaries of these employees declined after independence and are today at levels that are broadly commensurate with the private sector, once we consider their higher than average levels of education.My main aim for this fellowship is to disseminate these research findings to audiences in academia and beyond, by publishing in academic journals and writing blogs and articles aimed at a wider audience. A main priority will be to share findings with scholars, policymakers and policy organisations in East Africa, where these debates are particularly salient.As an extension to this work on public employment, related research studies policies on educational access and how they influenced the diffusion of education. Given the strong link between secondary and tertiary education and the opportunity to access public sector jobs, governments had some power to shape employment opportunities through policies that re-balanced educational access. Education thus also served as one of the main means by which governments could reduce, or amplify, group disaffection. My research looks at the distribution of educational opportunity over time to deduce whether educational inequalities have rising or declining, and why. A secondary aim for this fellowship is to develop this newer research agenda, by bringing several papers currently under draft to a publication stage and networking with other scholars or practitioners working on related topics.