How far forward are the impacts of free primary education felt? A research project at the Building Inclusive Growth (BIG) Lab examines if free primary schooling policies can be used to understand whether women who get more access to schooling actually change what they do in the labor market later on in adulthood. To support this work, the BIG Lab provides pre-doctoral students with hands-on experience in data collection, analysis, and dissemination. From 2021 onward, Professor Taryn Dinkelman investigated this question in a project that would grow into a 2-year collaboration with pre-doctoral research assistant Anh Hoang.
“We started with seven and we then expanded to all 54 countries in Africa” said Prof. Dinkelman, a development economist at the University of Notre Dame and an associated faculty member with the BIG Lab. “In the process, we put together this dataset of 54 countries about when they introduced free primary schooling and in some cases, when they actually reversed that free primary schooling.” Research Assistant, and now Notre Dame Economics Ph.D. student, Anh Hoang was introduced to the project in 2023 as part of her work at the BIG Lab as a research assistant. Initially working on building up the dataset, the replication package, literature reviews, and supervising undergraduate research assistants also working on the project, Hoang was able to develop technical skills in economics under Dinkelman’s mentorship.
While access to education has clear impacts, this project has been able to document using original information from policy documents, such as constitutions or educational reports from different countries comprehensively across the continent when free primary education (FPE) came in, and in some cases waves, where FPE policies were reversed and came in again later.
As the project has evolved, so much data from so many countries was collected that Prof. Dinkelman has expanded to understand some of the reasons why policies around FPE have changed, as well as looking at the connection between further education and attitudes toward democracy across African countries, “I think a core part of all of these projects is trying to learn something general. We're finding some things that are very similar in a lot of countries, but at the same time recognizing that each of these countries is very different, has a very different history, very different context, and so that's why, in some cases, the labor market outcomes that we're finding actually respond differently to education in different countries.”
“Her confidence grew a lot over the time that we worked together. Initially, I think she would just implement what I was asking her to do and then as time went on, she was able to start asking questions and give suggestions and push back on things that maybe didn't make sense to her, so that the end product was better.” -Dinkelman
Today, Hoang is finishing her first year of her Ph.D. “That's why I joined BIG lab in the first place. I wanted to learn about whether I would fit in a PhD program at first. So having the opportunity to work closely with very high professional researchers like Taryn, and to interact with current PhD students at the department, I realized that I like doing research. I feel like I could do it, and so I was motivated to join the PhD program.” Working on this project with Prof. Dinkelman has made Hoang reconsider her thesis scope, expressing an interest in pursuing a thesis that examines the big picture implications of policy.
As the project continues to evolve and additional research questions arise, Dinkelman speaks about her work with the BIG Lab, stating, “I think that my experience with Anh is also part of what we're trying to do here, it speaks to the training, but also about the mentoring and nurturing of young scholars”. This research exemplifies the BIG Lab’s commitment to fostering collaboration among faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates to generate impactful solutions that address the root causes of global poverty.
Originally published by at biglab.nd.edu on April 01, 2026.