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The impact of orphanhood on education attendance: Evidence from Zimbabwe
... 3 In addition, sub-Saharan African countries share the highest incidence of child labor worldwide; 26 per cent of children (aged 5-14) in the region were classified as economically active in 2004 (ILO, 2006). 4 Even though recent studies (Ha, Salama, & Gwavuya, 2015;Beegle, De Weerdt, & Dercon, 2010;Case & Ardington, 2006;Case, Paxson, & Ableidinger, 2004;Evans & Miguel, 2007;among others) have explored the relation between these two characteristics, there is a need for more countryspecific evidence about the effect of orphanhood on investments in children's human capital, taking account of schooling costs and intrahousehold dynamics. ...
... These specifications do not account for the fact that both decisions might be taken jointly and for the consequent correlation between the error terms. The main motivation for doing this is to obtain results that are consistent and comparable with previous studies (Case et al., 2004;Kondylis & Manacorda, 2012;Ha et al., 2015;among others). In addition, the properties of these estimators are well known. ...
... Similar results are found in the existing literature studying the effect on school attendance. Using the Multiple Indicator Monitoring Survey 2009, Ha et al. (2015) found that, relative to non-orphans, paternal, maternal and double orphans are less likely to attend school (4.8, 5.3 and 7.3 p.p., respectively). Ainsworth and Filmer (2006) find a similar ordering of effects using the DHS 1999. ...
The high incidence of orphanhood among children makes Zimbabwe an interesting case to study the school/work decision for children able to attend lower secondary. After controlling for household wealth, covariates at the individual, and household levels, and community fixed effects, I find that orphans are less likely to attend school and more likely to work. While orphans and non-orphans face the same marginal cost to go to school and work, living in blended households places orphans at a higher disadvantage. The main factor related to discrimination within households is living with household heads with whom children are not closely biologically related.
... Each of which has contributed to orphaning over 26 million children, a figure that has risen year to year (UNICEF, 2008(UNICEF, , 2015.1 Family networks in Africa are known to provide strong support to children who have lost a parent, however the scale of the orphan crisis has put considerable strain on these networks (Abebe & Aase, 2007;Kuo, Fitzgerald, Operario, & Casale, 2012;Ssewamala, Karimli, Han, & Ismayilova, 2010), leaving children open to physical, social, economic, and psychological vulnerabilities, in addition to an increased exposure to HIV infection (Foster, 2000;Ansell & Young, 2004;UNAIDS, 2015). Children who lose one or both parents are additionally less likely to obtain the same level of schooling than a child with both parents (Lloyd & Blanc, 2006;UNICEF, 2014), despite that schools can buffer the turmoil of orphanhood by providing psychosocial support and stability in the short term in addition to education that imparts important tools for improving lifetime earnings, health, and political participation (Bachman DeSilva et al., 2012;Ha, Salama, & Gwavuya, 2015;Ntinda, Maree, Mpofu, & Seeco, 2014;Urassa et al., 1997). ...
... E. Lee, Zuze, & Ross, 2005;Zhang, 2006). Noteworthy studies on orphans and education have sought to assess indicators such as years of schooling, attendance, and enrolment (Ardington & Leibbrandt, 2010;Beegle, De Weerdt, & Dercon, 2009;Evans & Miguel, 2007;Ha et al., 2015;Lloyd & Blanc, 2006;Nyambedha & Aagaard-Hansen, 2010).8 Test scores, in contrast, have not been included in this discussion, however with the information contained in the SACMEQ III dataset, this paper aims to target this most precise measure of student learning outcomes for orphans, albeit 6 The study accessed a panel dataset from rural Kenya covering approximately 20,000 children over a five-year period (1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002). ...
In sub-Saharan Africa over 52 million children are living with the death of one or both parents. Drivers of this parental mortality include afflictions at levels endemic to the region, including: HIV; malaria and other parasites; lower respiratory infections; diarrhoeal illnesses; and road accidents, among others. This paper examines the impact of orphanhood on learning outcomes among girls and boys in sub-Saharan Africa, conditional on school enrolment. By analysing test scores for approximately 60,000 pupils in 12 countries, we estimate the effect on student test scores by comparing paternal, maternal, and double orphans to non-orphans in the sample, specifically for the subjects of reading, mathematics, and HIV-AIDS knowledge. No previous study has analysed how orphanhood might influence learning by using student test score data, making this paper’s approach unique in the literature. This study employs two estimation techniques: Coarsened exact matching calculates the sample average treatment effect on the treated, while matching on students’ family structure, household wealth, school resources, and geographic location; and double lasso (DL) regression applies applying machine-learning for variable selection with high-dimensional controls for regional and school identifiers, school location, and student age. Our results show both CEM and DL consistently report a significant negative impact of orphanhood on test scores among specific countries, especially those which faltered in addressing the HIV-AIDS crisis.
... { The HIV/AIDS epidemic has substantially impacted children in SSA, with a significant increase in orphaned children in the region, where an estimated 80% (14.9 million) of the world's AIDS-related orphans live. [22][23][24][25][26][27][28] While some may be fortunate to have other family members able to provide care oversight, for some, there are no other family members, near or extended (kinship care), or courtappointed guardians, and the eldest child takes responsibility for the younger siblings. CHH are prevalent in South Africa with an estimated 122,000 children living within *60,000 CHH. ...
The North-West University's Centre for Human Metabolomics (CHM) is in the process of establishing the first rare disease (RD) biobank in South Africa and Africa. The CHM Biobank's main focus is on the collection of samples and information for rare congenital disorders. Approximately 72% of all RDs have a genetic origin, of which 70% have an exclusive pediatric onset. The need for such a biobank was identified by the CHM diagnostic laboratory. Feedback toward this initiative was overwhelmingly positive at the first stakeholder meeting in August 2019. However, gaining support from the public sector and recruiting of participants have proven to be challenging. Problems experienced to date include lack of support from government and clinicians; lack of knowledge on RDs (patients and clinicians); public health care focus not directed toward RDs; patients not returning for follow-up visits; and unwillingness to participate due to fear of exploitation. The CHM Biobank's vision and goals are aligned to address a national and international research need: it will provide a valuable resource for scientists to improve what is known about these diseases; to better understand the natural history and pathophysiology; to optimize diagnostic methods; and to potentially develop treatments. The genetic variability of the South African population provides added value to the RD biobank. This review provides a brief overview of the literature on the challenges and benefits of an RD biobank and how this relates to low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) like South Africa. The aim of the review is to draw attention to the potential benefits of such an undertaking and to create awareness, at both local and global level, toward some of the unique collective considerations that an RD biobank in LMIC (also unique South African challenges) faces on an operational, collaborate, and sustainability level.
... Previous research has uncovered orphans' susceptibility to a number of harms, including lack of food [4], dropping out of school [5,6], engaging in child labor [7], psychosocial problems [8][9][10][11], and increased morbidity [12,13] and mortality [14,15]. Female orphans also face an increased risk of sexual abuse, early sexual debut and pregnancy, and sexually transmitted infections [16][17][18]. ...
Objectives
This study considers whether orphans’ experiences with physically and psychologically violent discipline differ from non-orphans in sub-Saharan Africa, and to what extent national, community, household, caretaker, and child characteristics explain those differences.
Methods
We use cross-sectional Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) administered between 2010–2017 in 14 sub-Saharan African countries. The sample included 125,197 children, of which 2,937 were maternal orphans, 9,113 were paternal orphans, and 1,858 were double orphans. We estimate the difference between orphans and non-orphans experience of harsh discipline using multivariable logistic regressions with country fixed effects and clustered standard errors.
Results
Findings show that orphaned children experience less harsh discipline in the home. With the exception of double orphans’ experience with physically violent discipline, these differences persisted even after controlling for a rich set of child, household, and caretaker characteristics.
Conclusions
We propose two alternative explanations for our surprising findings and provide a supplementary analysis to help arbitrate between them. The evidence suggests that orphaned children (especially those with a deceased mother) are less likely to experience harsh discipline because of lower caretaker investment in their upbringing. We encourage future research to draw on in-depth interviews or household surveys with discipline data from multiple children in a home to further unpack why orphans tend to experience less harsh punishment than other children.
... In a study to investigate the factors that affect learners" school attendance in Melanesia, Posso and Feeny (2016), found that delays in paying school fees and older learners, affected the older learners" school attendance. The results of this study that orphaned learners attend school regularly contradict the findings of the study by Ha, Salama and Gwavuya (2015) that found irregular school attendance among orphaned learners in Zimbabwe. ...
This doctoral thesis examined the relationship between project design orientations(thinking), social capital and orphaned learners' educational achievements in Kenya's Homa Bay County.
... Exclusion from education affects millions of primary and secondary-aged children across sub-Saharan Africa, driven by diverse and complex social, economic and political factors. Research by scholars in sub-Saharan Africa on exclusion and alternative modes of education explores risk factors associated with students dropping out of primary and secondary education, including for instance gender (Ajaja, 2012;Nsagha and Thompson, 2011), economic shocks (Woldehanna and Hagos, 2015), migration (Pufall et al., 2015), flood and natural disasters (Mudavanhu, 2015), ethnicity (Maruatona, 2015;Tesfay and Malmberg, 2014), disability (Lynch, Lund and Massah 2014), and loss of parents (Ha et al., 2015;Yamin et al., 2015). Studies on Kenya (Abuya, Oketch and Musyoka, 2013) and Rwanda (Williams, Abbott and Mupenzi, 2015) have identified specific factors-such as hidden costs and chronic poverty-that contribute to children and young people dropping out of formal education, even in contexts where there is 'free' education. ...
This report outlines key features of education research undertaken by scholars based in sub-Saharan Africa, as represented in the African Education Research Database. The database catalogues social science research with implications for education policy and practice in sub-Saharan Africa, published in reputable journals and written by at least one researcher based in the region. In exclusively cataloguing research conducted by researchers based in sub-Saharan Africa, the African Education Research Database is a unique resource for educational development research and policy in the region.
... { The HIV/AIDS epidemic has substantially impacted children in SSA, with a significant increase in orphaned children in the region, where an estimated 80% (14.9 million) of the world's AIDS-related orphans live. [22][23][24][25][26][27][28] While some may be fortunate to have other family members able to provide care oversight, for some, there are no other family members, near or extended (kinship care), or courtappointed guardians, and the eldest child takes responsibility for the younger siblings. CHH are prevalent in South Africa with an estimated 122,000 children living within *60,000 CHH. ...
Families in Africa have been undergoing changes recently. The objective of this study was to review published literature on the types, determinants and consequences of family changes in Africa and highlight research gaps in the area. Sixty-nine journals from 1976 to date that were downloaded from databases such as PubMed, JSTOR, Google Scholar and ScienceDirect were systematically reviewed. There are family transitions in Africa due to socio-economic factors, religious, health and political changes. Seventy-two percent of the studies employed a quantitative approach, 20% qualitative and 7% mixed method approach. There are research gaps on topics such as same-sex marriages, cohabitation and father-only households. Families in Africa are responding to socio-economic and other changes that are happening around them. Family research is still understudied in Africa. There is a need for more mixed method studies that explain the quantitative findings.
From the capability approach, child poverty is understood as the deprivation of basic capabilities and related achieved functionings. This paper examines multidimensional poverty among Afghan chil-dren using the Alkire and Foster method. The case of Afghanistan is particularly relevant as years of conflict aggravated by several severe droughts, political insecurity, bad governance and on going violence have significantly increased poverty in the country. The paper dis-cusses the relevant dimensions when analysing child poverty and uses data from a survey carried out by Handicap International which con-tains information on dimensions of children's wellbeing that is typi-cally missing in standard surveys. Ten dimensions are considered in this paper: health, material deprivation, food security, care and love, social inclusion, access to schooling, freedom from economic exploita-tion, autonomy and mobility. Our results show that younger children and those living in rural areas are the most deprived.
This paper provides an in-depth review and analysis of literature on dropping out from school, and focuses on children who have gained access, but fail to complete a basic education cycle. The main discussion is around why and how children drop out from school. Here drop out is not presented as a distinct event, but rather a process where a range of supply-demand factors interact to influence schooling access. The paper looks at literature in relation to household, community and social contexts of dropping out, as well as school supply and practices. It also explores what research is saying around pre-cursors to dropping out and factors which may influence retention. Finally, the study identifies gaps in research around dropping out and how CREATE research could address some of these. CREATE (the Consortium for Research on Educational Access, Transitions and Equity) is a DFID funded research programme looking at issues of educational access in South Asia and Sub Saharan Africa. For more information go to www.create-rpc.org. (Contains 2 figures and 1 table.)
The number of children losing one or both parents to HIV/AIDS has continued to rise in the past decade, with most of them being school-aged children. This study reviews global literature on the effects of HIV/AIDS (e.g., parental HIV-related illness or death) on children's schooling. Systematic review procedures generated 23 studies for examination. Existing studies show educational disadvantages among children affected by AIDS in various educational outcomes, including school enrollment and attendance, school behavior and performance, school completion, and educational attainment. A number of individual and contextual factors potentially moderate or mediate the effect of HIV/AIDS on children's education. These factors include gender of child, pattern of parental loss (maternal vs. paternal vs. dual), living arrangement (relationship with caregivers, gender of the household head), and household poverty. Current literature indicates limitations in number and scope of existing studies and in educational outcome measurements. There is a lack of studies with longitudinal design and data collection from multiple sources (e.g., students, teachers, caregivers), and a lack of studies on the relationship between psychosocial well-being of children affected by AIDS and their educational outcomes. Future studies need to employ more rigorous methodology and incorporate both individual and contextual factors for children affected by AIDS in various regions. More efforts are needed to design and implement culturally appropriate and context-specific approaches to improve the educational outcomes of children affected by AIDS.
Over the past decade, there has been increasing global attention to mitigating the impacts of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on children's lives. Within this context, developing and tracking global child vulnerability indicators in relation to HIV and AIDS has been critical in terms of assessing need and monitoring progress. Although orphanhood and adult household illness (co-residence with a chronically ill or HIV-positive adult) are frequently used as markers, or definitions, of vulnerability for children affected by HIV and AIDS, evidence supporting their effectiveness has been equivocal. Data from 60 nationally representative household surveys (36 countries) were analyzed using bivariate and multivariate methods to establish if these markers consistently identified children with worse outcomes and also to identify other factors associated with adverse outcomes for children. Outcome measures utilized were wasting among children aged 0-4 years, school attendance among children aged 10-14 years, and early sexual debut among adolescent boys and girls aged 15-17 years. Results indicate that orphanhood and co-residence with a chronically ill or HIV-positive adult are not universally robust measures of child vulnerability across national and epidemic contexts. For wasting, early sexual debut, and to a lesser extent, school attendance, in the majority of surveys analyzed, there were few significant differences between orphans and non-orphans or children living with chronically ill or HIV-positive adults and children not living with chronically ill or HIV-positive adults. Of other factors analyzed, children living in households where the household head or eldest female had a primary education or higher were significantly more likely to be attending school, better household health and sanitation was significantly associated with less wasting, and greater household wealth was significantly associated both with less wasting and better school attendance. Of all marker of child vulnerability analyzed, only household wealth consistently showed power to differentiate across age-disaggregated outcomes. Overall, the findings indicate the need for a multivalent approach to defining child vulnerability, one which incorporates household wealth as a key predictor of child vulnerability.
The rapid increase in adult mortality due to the AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa raises great concern about potential intergenerational effects on children. This article estimates the impact of AIDS-related adult mortality on primary school attendance in rural Kenya using a panel of 1,266 households surveyed in 1997, 2000, and 2002. The article distinguishes between effects on boys' and girls' education to understand potential gender differences resulting from adult mortality. We also estimate how adult mortality affects child schooling before as well as after the death occurs. The article also estimates the importance of households' initial asset levels in influencing the relationship between adult mortality and child school attendance. We find that all of these distinctions are important when estimating the magnitude of the effects of adult mortality on child school attendance. The probability that girls in initially poor households will remain in school prior to the death of a working-age adult in the household drops from roughly 88% to 55%. Boys in relatively poor households are less likely than girls to be in school after an adult death. By contrast, we find no clear effects on girls' or boys' education among relatively nonpoor households, either before or after the timing of adult mortality in the household. We find a strong correlation between working-age adult mortality in our data and lagged HIV prevalence rates at nearby sentinel survey sites. The evidence indicates that rising AIDS-related adult mortality in rural Kenya is adversely affecting primary school attendance among the poor. However, these results measure only short-term impacts. Over the longer run, whether school attendance in afflicted household rebounds or deteriorates further is unknown.
Mortality of parents and other adults due to the African AIDS epidemic could reduce children's primary schooling by reducing households' ability to pay fees, raising the opportunity cost of children's time, and leaving orphaned children with guardians who care less about their education than would their parents. This study measures the impact of adult deaths and orphan status on primary school attendance and hours spent at school using a panel household survey from north-western Tanzania, an area hard-hit by the AIDS epidemic. Attendance was delayed for maternal orphans and children in poor households with a recent adult death; there was no evidence that children 7-14 dropped out of primary school due to orphan status or adult deaths. However, among children already attending, school hours were significantly lower in the months prior to an adult death in the household and seemed to recover following the death. In addition, girls sharply reduced their hours in school immediately after losing a parent. Improvements in school quality and better access to secondary education would improve outcomes for all children, including those affected by adult AIDS mortality. Beyond that, public policy needs to focus on the special schooling constraints faced by children affected by adult deaths, both in terms of increased opportunity costs of their time and the psychological impacts, with an eye to how they might be mitigated and at what cost.
In sub-Saharan Africa, the prevalence of orphanhood among children has been greatly exacerbated by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. If orphanhood harms a child's development and these effects perpetuate into adult life, then the African orphan crisis could seriously jeopardize the continent's future generations. Whether or not there exists an adverse, causal and intergenerational effect of HIV/AIDS on development is of crucial importance for setting medical priorities. This study is the first to empirically investigate the impact of orphanhood on health and schooling using long-term longitudinal data following children into adulthood.
We examined a cohort of 718 children interviewed in the early 1990s and again in 2004. Detailed survey questionnaires and anthropometric measurements were administered at baseline and during a follow-up survey. Final attained height and education (at adulthood) between children who lost a parent before the age of 15 and those who did not were compared.
On average, children who lose their mother before the age of 15 suffer a deficit of around 2 cm in final attained height (mean 1.96; 95% CI 0.06-3.77) and 1 year of final attained schooling (mean 1.01; 95% CI 0.39-1.81). This effect is permanent and the hypothesis that it is causal cannot be rejected by our study. Although father's death is a predictor of lower height and schooling as well, we reject the hypothesis of a causal link.
The African orphan crisis, exacerbated by the HIV/AIDS epidemic will have important negative intergenerational effects.
Clarify is a program that uses Monte Carlo simulation to convert the raw output of statistical procedures into results that are of direct interest to researchers, without changing statistical assumptions or requiring new statistical models. The program, designed for use with the Stata statistics package, offers a convenient way to implement the techniques described in: Gary King, Michael Tomz, and Jason Wittenberg (2000). "Making the Most of Statistical Analyses: Improving Interpretation and Presentation." American Journal of Political Science 44, no. 2 (April 2000): 347-61. We recommend that you read this article before using the software. Clarify simulates quantities of interest for the most commonly used statistical models, including linear regression, binary logit, binary probit, ordered logit, ordered probit, multinomial logit, Poisson regression, negative binomial regression, weibull regression, seemingly unrelated regression equations, and the additive logistic normal model for compositional data. Clarify Version 2.1 is forthcoming (2003) in Journal of Statistical Software.
One of the hallmarks of the development of political science as a discipline has been the creation of new methodologies by scholars within the discipline--methodologies that are well-suited to the analysis of political data. Gary King has been a leader in the development of these new approaches to the analysis of political data. In his book, Unifying Political Methodology, King shows how the likelihood theory of inference offers a unified approach to statistical modeling for political research and thus enables us to better analyze the enormous amount of data political scientists have collected over the years. Newly reissued, this book is a landmark in the development of political methodology and continues to challenge scholars and spark controversy. “Gary King’s Unifying Political Methodology is at once an introduction to the likelihood theory of statistical inference and an evangelist’s call for us to change our ways of doing political methodology. One need not accept the altar call to benefit enormously from the book, but the intellectual debate over the call for reformation is likely to be the enduring contribution of the work.” --Charles Franklin, American Political Science Review “King’s book is one of the only existing books which deal with political methodology in a clear and consistent framework. The material in it is now and will continue to be essential reading for all serious students and researchers in political methodology.” --R. Michael Alvarez, California Institute of Tech-nology Gary King is Professor of Government, Harvard University. One of the leading thinkers in political methodology, he is the author of A Solution to the Ecological Inference Problem: Reconstructing Individual Behavior from Aggregate Data and other books and articles.
Levels of orphanhood and patterns of different forms of orphanhood (namely, double, paternal and maternal) will change as an HIV epidemic progresses. The implications of different forms of orphanhood for children's development will also change as the cumulative impact of a period of sustained high morbidity and mortality takes its toll on the adult population. In this article we describe patterns of orphanhood and orphans' educational experience in populations in eastern Zimbabwe subject to a major HIV epidemic which is maturing into its endemic phase. Levels of orphanhood have grown recently but rates of maternal and double orphanhood, in particular, are likely to continue to increase for several years to come. Orphans are found disproportionately in rural, female-, elderly- and adolescent-headed households. Each of these is a risk factor for more extreme poverty. The over-representation in rural areas could reflect urban-rural migration around the time of death of the parent due to loss of income and the high cost of living in towns. Over-representation in female-, elderly- and adolescent-headed households reflects the predisposition of men to seek employment in towns, estates and mines; the higher level of paternal orphanhood; the reluctance of second wives to take responsibility for their predecessors' children and stress in the extended family system. The death of the mother was found to have a strong detrimental effect on a child's chances of completing primary school education-the strength of effect increasing with time since maternal death. The death of the father had no detrimental effect, despite the fact that paternal orphans were typically found in the poorest households.
African Journal of Social Work Vol.18(2) 2003: 7-32
The article examines the determinants of children's school enrollment and completion of primary grade four--one of UNICEF's key indicators of social progress--in seven countries of sub-Saharan Africa, focusing on the role of parents and other household members in providing children with educational and residential support. While in most of these countries a substantial majority of 10-14-year-old children are currently enrolled in school, many fewer children by this age have attained a minimum of a fourth grade education, primarily due to late ages of entry into school and slow progress from grade to grade. The resources of a child's residential household--in particular the education of the household head and the household standard of living--are determining factors in explaining variations among children in these aspects of schooling. By contrast, a child's biological parents appear to play a less critical role, as demonstrated by comparing the educational record of orphans with that of children whose parents are still living. Furthermore, children living in female-headed households have better school outcomes than children living in male-headed households, when households with similar resources are compared.
The AIDS epidemic has caused an increase in adult mortality and consequently an increase in the numbers of orphaned children. Data were used from the Kisesa Community Study in northwest Tanzania, to assess the prevalence and consequences of orphanhood in the context of existing child care practices in a rural area with moderately high HIV-prevalence. This study was carried out in a ward with about 20,000 people with HIV prevalence of 6.2 per cent among adults 15-44 years and slightly over one-third of adult deaths associated with HIV/AIDS. Seven point six per cent of children under 15 and 8.9 per cent of children under 18 had lost one or both parents. Child fostering was very common. Virtually all orphans and fosterchildren were cared for by members of the extended family, often the maternal grandparents: 14 per cent of households had at least one orphan. Such households did not have a lower economic status, but had a less favourable dependency ratio. Households with orphans were also more likely to be female-headed. Follow-up mortality rates were similar among orphans, foster-children and other children, for both sexes. Mobility was much higher among orphans and foster-children, and orphans and foster-children had somewhat lower school attendance rates: lower enrolment and higher dropout rates. The problem of rapidly increasing numbers of orphans needs to be considered in the context of previously high levels of adult mortality, child-fostering practices and general poverty. The extended family seems to be able to absorb the increase in orphans, because caring for children of other members of the family is widespread, whether the parents are alive or dead. This study yields no evidence that orphans as a group are disadvantaged, although certain subgroups of orphans or orphan households may be more vulnerable and in need of support.
Social Scientists rarely take full advantage of the information available in their statistical results. As a consequence, they miss opportunities to present quantities that are of greatest substantive interest for their research and express the appropriate degree of certainty about these quantities. In this article, we offer an approach, built on the technique of statistical simulation, to extract the currently overlooked information from any statistical method and to interpret and present it in a reader-friendly manner. Using this technique requires some expertise, which we try to provide herein, but its application should make the results of quantitative articles more informative and transparent. To illustrate our recommendations, we replicate the results of several published works, showing in each case how the authors' own conclusions can be expressed more sharply and informatively, and, without changing any data or statistical assumptions, how our approach reveals important new information about the research questions at hand. We also offer very easy-to-use Clarify software that implements our suggestions.
Objective: To determine the incidence, morbidity, mortality, and socioeconomic consequences of becoming an AIDS orphan (a child with an HIV-1-seropositive mother who has died) in Kinshasa, Zaire.
Design: A longitudinal cohort study was undertaken between 1986 and 1990. Within this cohort, a nested case-control study of AIDS orphans was performed. AIDS orphan cases were children with an HIV-1-seropositive mother who had died. Two groups of control children were identified. The first group of control children were age-matched children with HIV-1-seropositive mothers who were alive at the time of death of the AIDS orphan case mother. The second group of control children were children with HIV-1-seronegative mothers who were also alive at the time of death of the AIDS orphan case mother.
Setting: Obstetric ward and follow-up clinic at two large municipal hospitals in Kinshasa, Zaire.
Participants: A total of 466 HIV-1-seropositive women, their children, and the fathers of these children; 606 HIV-1-seronegative women, their children, and the fathers of these children.
Main outcome measures: AIDS orphan incidence, HIV-1 vertical transmission rate, morbidity, mortality and socioeconomic indicators of the consequences of becoming an AIDS orphan.
Results: The AIDS orphan incidence rate was 8.2 per 100 HIV-1-seropositive women-years of follow-up. Vertical transmission of HIV-1 was higher in AIDS orphan cases (41%) than in control children with HIV-1-seropositive mothers (26%; P<0.05). Among children without vertically acquired HIV-1 infection, morbidity rates and indices of social and economic well-being were similar in AIDS orphans and control children. Five out of 26 (19%) AIDS orphan cases died during follow-up, compared with three out of 52 (6%) control children (P<0.05).
Conclusion: During a 3-year follow-up period, children with HIV-1-seropositive mothers had a considerable risk of becoming an AIDS orphan. However, the presence of a concerned extended family appeared to minimize any adverse health and socioeconomic effects experienced by orphan children.
(C) Lippincott-Raven Publishers.
This paper proposes a new methodology for multidimensional poverty measurement consisting of an identification method [rho]k that extends the traditional intersection and union approaches, and a class of poverty measures M[alpha]. Our identification step employs two forms of cutoff: one within each dimension to determine whether a person is deprived in that dimension, and a second across dimensions that identifies the poor by 'counting' the dimensions in which a person is deprived. The aggregation step employs the FGT measures, appropriately adjusted to account for multidimensionality. The axioms are presented as joint restrictions on identification and the measures, and the methodology satisfies a range of desirable properties including decomposability. The identification method is particularly well suited for use with ordinal data, as is the first of our measures, the adjusted headcount ratio M0. We present some dominance results and an interpretation of the adjusted headcount ratio as a measure of unfreedom. Examples from the US and Indonesia illustrate our methodology.
Recently, the first ever estimate of the number of children living poverty in developing countries was undertaken. The incidence of child poverty was estimated by establishing how many children suffer severe deprivation in at least one out of seven indicators which are internationally recognized as their rights as well as constitutive of poverty. This is a major step forward in the analysis of poverty. In this paper, we generalize these findings on the incidence of children living in poverty by exploring how to estimate the depth and severity of child poverty.
Two countries can have the same proportion of children living in poverty, however, the actual plight of children could be very different depending on how many deprivations, on average, children suffer. In addition, even if they suffer from the same average number of deprivations, these deprivation could be the same for all children or be very unevenly distributed. We show how these considerations can be used to estimate the depth and severity of poverty. We use regional data to provide applied examples of this methodology.
The method proposed in this paper is similar to the one used to estimate the incidence, depth and severity of income poverty. The paper also offers some possible generalizations and ways forward for future research.
The relationship between orphan status, household economic status, and child school enrollment across low-income countries varies substantially. Orphans sometimes have lower enrollment than non-orphans, but in many countries, the difference is small and not statistically significantly different from zero. The orphan enrollment gap is typically dwarfed by the gap between children from richer and poorer households. Often, even children from richer households have low enrollments—suggesting constraints to enrollment for all children. Girl orphans are typically not disproportionately affected in terms of enrollment. Policies need to assess country-specific situations, focusing on the interaction between orphan status, poverty, and the education system more generally—before considering school-related orphan-specific mitigation measures.
El presente reporte correspodiente al año 2008, desarrolla los temas de prevención en la transmisión del VIH de madre a hijo, la provisión de tratamiento y cuidados pediátricos, la prevención de infecciones entre adolescentes y jóvenes, así como la protección y cuidado de los niños afectados por el sida en los países en desarrollo.
This paper conducts an econometric analysis of data for a sample of over 4000 children in India, between the ages of 1 and 2 years, with a view to studying two aspects of the neglect of children: their likelihood of being immunised against disease and their likelihood of receiving a nutritious diet. The starting hypothesis, consistent with an universal interest in gender issues, was that girls were more likely to be neglected than boys. The analysis confirmed this hypothesis. In respect of vaccinations, the likelihood of girls being fully vaccinated, after controlling for other variables, was 5 percentage points lower than that for boys. In respect of receiving a nutritious diet, the treatment of girls depended very much on whether or not their mothers were literate: there was no gender discrimination between children of literate mothers; on the other hand, when the mother was illiterate, girls were 5 percentage points less likely to be well-fed relative to their brothers and the presence of a literate father did little to dent this gender gap. But the analysis also pointed to a broader conclusion which was that all children in India suffered from sharper, but less publicised forms of disadvantage than that engendered solely by gender. These were the consequences which stemmed from children being born to illiterate mothers and being brought up in the more impoverished parts of India.
To determine the incidence, morbidity, mortality, and socioeconomic consequences of becoming an AIDS orphan (a child with an HIV-1-seropositive mother who has died) in Kinshasa, Zaïre.
A longitudinal cohort study was undertaken between 1986 and 1990. Within this cohort, a nested case-control study of AIDS orphans was performed. AIDS orphan cases were children with an HIV-1-seropositive mother who had died. Two groups of control children were identified. The first group of control children were age-matched children with HIV-1-seropositive mothers who were alive at the time of death of the AIDS orphan case mother. The second group of control children were children with HIV-1-seronegative mothers who were also alive at the time of death of the AIDS orphan case mother.
Obstetric ward and follow-up clinic at two large municipal hospitals in Kinshasa, Zaïre.
A total of 466 HIV-1-seropositive women, their children, and the fathers of these children; 606 HIV-1-seronegative women, their children, and the fathers of these children.
AIDS orphan incidence, HIV-1 vertical transmission rate, morbidity, mortality and socioeconomic indicators of the consequences of becoming an AIDS orphan.
The AIDS orphan incidence rate was 8.2 per 100 HIV-1-seropositive women-years of follow-up. Vertical transmission of HIV-1 was higher in AIDS orphan cases (41%) than in control children with HIV-1-seropositive mothers (26%; P < 0.05). Among children without vertically acquired HIV-1 infection, morbidity rates and indices of social and economic well-being were similar in AIDS orphans and control children. Five out of 26 (19%) AIDS orphan cases died during follow-up, compared with three out of 52 (6%) control children (P < 0.05).
During a 3-year follow-up period, children with HIV-1-seropositive mothers had a considerable risk of becoming an AIDS orphan. However, the presence of a concerned extended family appeared to minimize any adverse health and socioeconomic effects experienced by orphan children.
An assessment of the prevalence of orphans and the magnitude of their problems and the extent to which HIV-1 is contributing to this was done in a rural population in South-West Uganda with an HIV-1 seroprevalence of 8% among adults. Slightly over 10% of children aged less than 15 years were reported to have lost one or both parents. Loss of the father alone (6.3%) was more common than loss of the mother alone (2.8%). Generally orphans were living with their surviving parent or other relatives but it was also noted in this study that some children with both parents alive lived with relatives as part of the extended family system. HIV-1 seroprevalence rates were higher among orphans than among non-orphans and were up to 6 times higher in the 0-4 year age group. Seropositivity rates were also higher among surviving parents of orphans than among parents of non-orphans. No significant difference in mortality between orphans and non-orphans was observed. During a 3-year follow-up period a total of 169 children became orphans and 43% of these cases resulted from the death of an HIV-1 positive parent. There was a limited effect on school attendance by orphanhood. The HIV-1 epidemic has substantially increased the number of orphans in this community, a finding which is probably typical of many other sub-Saharan African countries. It appears that these orphans were generally well looked after within the community. This coping capacity may, however become overstretched if the epidemic evolves further.
This study uses recent Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data to examine levels, trends, and differentials in orphan prevalence in sub-Saharan Africa. The first part of the analysis presents direct estimates of orphan prevalence in 17 countries during the period 1995-2000. We find a strong correlation between orphanhood prevalence and national adult HIV prevalence estimates lending support to the interpretation of the orphan crisis as, in large part, AIDS-related. The second part of the analysis consists of an in-depth study of trends and age-patterns in orphan prevalence and welfare in the 1990s for five countries that have had widely divergent HIV prevalence levels (Zimbabwe, Kenya, Tanzania, Ghana, and Niger). The vulnerability of orphans with respect to their situation in households and educational opportunities is evaluated in relation to non-orphans' experience. The results of the analysis indicate that losing one or both parents is significantly associated with diminished chances of being at the appropriate grade level for age. Our results are interpreted in the context of societal responses to the crisis, and potential recommendations for intervention.
We examine the impact of orphanhood on children's school enrollment in 10 sub-Saharan African countries. Although poorer children in Africa are less likely to attend school, the lower enrollment of orphans is not accounted for solely by their poverty. We find that orphans are less likely to be enrolled than are nonorphans with whom they live. Consistent with Hamilton's rule, the theory that the closeness of biological ties governs altruistic behavior, outcomes for orphans depend on the relatedness of orphans to their household heads. The lower enrollment of orphans is largely explained by the greater tendency of orphans to live with distant relatives or unrelated caregivers.
A quarter of a century has passed since the first deaths from AIDS were recorded. Though great progress has been made on many fronts the effect of the epidemic on children has proven particularly hard to quantify analyse and confront--and even harder to place on the agendas of policymakers aid agencies and political and scientific leaders. The epidemic has worsened the situation for children who live in communities affected by AIDS leading to unprecedented welfare problems for large numbers of children and at the same time undermining the ability of governments to meet obligations contained in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Children indirectly affected by HIV/AIDS can be broadly divided into two categories. First are those whose parents are infected with HIV. These children are barely noticed by programmes in place to alleviate the effects of HIV/AIDS though their numbers run into millions. Babies born to women infected with HIV even if not infected themselves have higher mortality rates and more developmental problems than their peers because of compromised parenting of stressed ill and dying mothers. (excerpt)
We analyze longitudinal data from a demographic surveillance area (DSA) in KwaZulu-Natal to examine the impact of parental death on children's outcomes. The results show significant differences in the impact of mothers' and fathers' deaths. The loss of a child's mother is a strong predictor of poor schooling outcomes. Maternal orphans are significantly less likely to be enrolled in school and have completed significantly fewer years of schooling, conditional on age, than children whose mothers are alive. Less money is spent on maternal orphans' educations, on average, conditional on enrollment. Moreover, children whose mothers have died appear to be at an educational disadvantage when compared with non-orphaned children with whom they live. We use the timing of mothers' deaths relative to children's educational shortfalls to argue that mothers' deaths have a causal effect on children's educations. The loss of a child's father is a significant correlate of poor household socioeconomic status. However, the death of a father between waves of the survey has no significant effect on subsequent asset ownership. Evidence from the South African 2001 Census suggests that the estimated effects of maternal deaths on children's outcomes in the Africa Centre DSA reflect the reality for orphans throughout South Africa.
AIDS deaths could have a major impact on economic development by affecting the human capital accumulation of the next generation. We estimate the impact of parent death on primary school participation using an unusual five-year panel data set of over 20,000 Kenyan children. There is a substantial decrease in school participation following a parent death and a smaller drop before the death (presumably due to pre-death morbidity). Estimated impacts are smaller in specifications without individual fixed effects, suggesting that estimates based on cross-sectional data are biased toward zero. Effects are largest for children whose mothers died and, in a novel finding, for those with low baseline academic performance.
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