Regular ArticleAfrican polygamy: Past and present

- Colonial teachers reduce polygamy in the present.
- Colonial missions reduce polygamy in the present.
- Four natural experiments that expanded modern education did not reduce polygamy.

I evaluate the impact of education on polygamy in Africa. Districts of French West Africa that received more colonial teachers and parts of sub-Saharan Africa that received Protestant or Catholic missions have lower polygamy rates in the present. I find no evidence of a causal effect of modern education on polygamy. Natural experiments that have expanded education in Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone and Kenya have not reduced polygamy. Colonial education and missionary education, then, have been more powerful sources of cultural change than the cases of modern schooling I consider.