negative (-0.712; p<0.01). This means that the impact of food price inflation on school attendance is greater for girls who take more than 5 hours to walk (one way) to the nearest school from their homes compared to girls who take less than 30 minutes to do so. One explanation for this result is that when faced with an economic shock such as inflation, households become poorer (as noted above), and tend to sacrifice the education of their female children whose schools are far away from their homes as they may not be able to afford the costs related to living far away from school. In this regard, bringing schools closer to households will help to mitigate the adverse impact of inflation on girls’ school attendance. The results also suggest that school attendance increases if the household head is a woman and has secondary or university education. Designing programs to promote female education will help to improve education outcomes in general, and for girls in particular.

# **Labor**

South Sudan’s economic instability led many of working age to drop out of the labor force between 2015 and 2016. During this period, the urban labor force participation rate dropped significantly from about one-half to about one-third (Figure A7). In 2015, the labor force participation rate remained relatively similar between poor and non-poor households and across expenditure quintiles. There are no significant differences between men and women in labor force participation in both years.<sup>10</sup> The urban unemployment rate was 8 percent in 2015 and 7 percent in 2016 (Figure A8). This number reduced substantially to 3 percent in 2017. It may not be very surprising to observe relatively high employment rates because like many other poor countries, South Sudan lacks social safety nets, which forces unemployed individuals to seek employment.

Similar to school attendance, food price inflation has a strong impact on the labor market. Increasing food prices leads to a decrease in labor force participation and increasing unemployment. In urban areas, education level is a strong determinant of unemployment for both men and women.

# **Hunger**

Between 2015 and 2016, hunger incidence deteriorated severely for households in the poorest quintile, with the likelihood of experiencing hunger ‘often’ (more than 10 times per month) increasing from 4 percent to 10 percent (Figure A10, p<0.05). Due to rising prices without compensatory income increases, especially the wage-dependent urban population lost real purchasing power. Food insecurity and hunger remain a serious issue for South Sudan. For the poorest households, the likelihood of experiencing hunger ‘sometimes’ (3-10 times per month) has been reducing from 38 percent in 2015 to 29 percent in 2016 and rising to 40 percent in 2017. This confirms that the poorest households are more vulnerable to hunger than richer households in the face of rising food prices. Richer households are much more likely to adjust their diets to cope with a lack of food, while the poorest households cope with a lack of food by going entire days without eating. This may pose serious health issues, and affect children’s education outcomes, with both short-term and long-term adverse effects on poverty. Resorting to more moderate strategies, compared with the poorest households, those in the top 4 poverty quintiles are more likely to deal

> 10 The 2017 labor force participation numbers are not entirely comparable with the previous years because of the changes in the questionnaire.

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