The impact of parental death on school outcomes: longitudinal evidence from South Africa.

The impact of parental death on school enrollment and achievement: Longitudinal evidence from South Africa

The Impact of Parental Death on School Outcomes: Longitudinal Evidence from South Africa* Anne Case and Cally Ardington

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 signifi cant 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 signifi cantly less likely to be enrolled in school and...

Gender differentials in the impact of parental death: Adolescent's sexual behaviour and risk of HIV infection in rural South Africa

Using data from a longitudinal surveillance study from rural South Africa, we investigated the odds of sexual debut, pregnancy and HIV infection of 15- to 19-year-old adolescents by parental survival. Using descriptive statistics and logistic regressions, we examine the relative risk of orphans compared with non-orphans to have ever had sex, being pregnant and being HIV infected, adjusting for ...

A Two-Phase Longitudinal Study on Nutrition and School Performance among Grades 1- 3 Children in Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa

Factors thought to be relevant to a child’s cognitive development in this environment were measured at baseline when the children were 4-6 years pf age, and several were found to be associated with scores in at least one of the three cognitive tests administered to the children: the area where the children lived (site), gender, whether children received pre -school education, their HIV status, ...

Orphans in Africa: parental death, poverty, and school enrollment.

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...