The Effect of Water Hauling Time on Children’s School Enrollment in Haiti

Limited access to safe and proximate water remains a defining constraint in Haiti, where access to piped water remains limited and school enrollment is not universal. Using a pseudo-panel constructed from four rounds of the Haiti Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), we estimate the causal impact of water hauling time on childrens school enrollment. Our findings reveal a strong and statistically significant, each additional minute spent fetching water reduces the likelihood of enrollment by about 1.3 percentage points,with substantially larger effects in rural areas where hauling time is highest. Gender-specific estimates reveal that the burden of distance is not symmetric. While girls more often perform water collection overall, boys disproportionately undertake long-distance trips, and simulated enrollment probabilities indicate a widening gender gap once collection times exceed 3040 minutes, with boys experiencing steeper enrollment losses. These findings demonstrate how deficient water infrastructure depresses educational participation, underscoring the potential of investments in improved and more proximate water access to generate meaningful school enrollment gains.