Orphanhood and School Attendance in Nigeria: Do Gender and Household Income Matter?

ABSTRACT

Using the 2010 Nigeria Education Data Survey, this research examines the interaction of paternal and maternal/double orphanhood with gender and household income on school attendance; we ascertain whether the relationship varies by age and urban-rural residence. The research employs an economic explanation and the sociocultural construction of the gender division of labor in sub-Saharan Africa as theoretical frameworks. Findings show that the combination of being a maternal/double orphan and being female or living in a poor household leads to the lowest probability of attending school. The results also indicate that female maternal/double orphans who live in rural areas and whose age is eleven or older have the lowest probability of attending school. Both results are statistically significant. The findings support the economic explanation and the theory of sociocultural construction of the gender division of labor. Future policies should focus on subsidizing the costs of schooling for orphans.

Notes

¹ According to international development institutions and English-speaking societies, an orphan is a child younger than 18 years whose mother, father, or both parents have died due to any cause (UNAIDS, UNICEF, and USAID 2004). A maternal or paternal orphan is a child for whom one parent (mother or father, respectively) has died. A double orphan has no living parent (UNAIDS et al., 2004).

² In sub-Saharan Africa, being an orphan, especially a maternal and double orphan, compared to being a nonorphan is a meaningful category because it carries various levels of vulnerabilities beyond educational disruption (Camfield 2011; Case, Paxton, and Ableidinger 2004). The vulnerabilities experienced by them also include increased malnutrition/stunting and ill health, decreased access to modern medicine, and increased psychological distress due to parental illness and death (Case et al. 2004; Foster and Williamson 2000; Kitara et al. 2013). In fact, Lloyd and Blanc (1996) and Yamano and Jayne (2005) argued that orphans are vulnerable economically because of the loss of monetary resources that parent(s) provide.

³ The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child defines children as individuals younger than 18 years of age (Foster and Williamson 2000). The data analyzed in this research were collected variables on children between four and 16 years old.

⁴ Structural Adjustment Programs are conditional loans that the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and transnational financial institutions give to developing countries under the stipulation that these countries adopt neoliberal economic policies that put inflation control and debt servicing as top priorities (Connell 2013). Structural Adjustment Programs were later replaced with poverty reduction programs, but it still has lasting impact on many developing countries (Connell 2013).

⁵ The government of Nigeria recognizes the disadvantage that being an orphan creates compared to being a nonorphan (Biemba, Walker, and Simon 2009; Dauda 2013). The National Plan of Action on Orphans and Vulnerable Children stated that orphans need more protection, psychosocial support, education, health, household care, and economic and legal support than nonorphans because they are susceptible to discrimination, malnutrition, sexual violence, child labor, withdrawal from school, lack of access to parent’s properties, trafficking, and premature mortality (Biemba, Walker, and Simon 2009; Dauda 2013).

⁶ UNAIDS (2013) stated that the immense care-taking responsibility of women and girls reduces their economic and educational opportunities, respectively.

⁷ The categories of maternal, paternal, and double orphans hold here in all questions.

⁸ In many sub-Saharan African countries, a substantial percentage of children who are supposed to be in secondary school are still in primary school; they fell behind because of enrolling late, repeating grades, or dropping out altogether (Timaeus and Boler 2007).

⁹ The children in the forthcoming analyses are those whose mother’s birthing history exists. Those children in the newly selected sample of 2010 NEDS who are not derived from the 2008 NDHS are excluded from the sample. This is because they do not have the mother’s birthing history variable. They were not administered the 2008 NDHS questionnaires. As a result, it is impossible to obtain their mother’s birthing history, which provides information on their birth order and sibling composition, both being vital variables in the analyses of children’s schooling in the developing world.

¹⁰ Formal schools were defined by those constructing the survey to be those following a Western-style approach and curriculum. Children attending Koranic schools are not included in this definition or the forthcoming analysis.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Aramide Kazeem

Aramide Kazeem is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Sociology at Western Kentucky University. She joins the faculty at the University of West Georgia as an Assistant Professor of Sociology in August 2017. Her research interests include demographic aspects of education, international development, child health and nutrition, child labor, gender, and schooling in sub-Saharan Africa. Her research has appeared in Comparative Education Review, Social Indicators Research, and International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy. Her teaching interests include statistics for social science, research methods, and development courses in sub-Saharan Africa.

John M. Musalia

John Musalia is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology, Western Kentucky University, and Vice President of Anthropologists and Sociologists of Kentucky. His research interests are in the areas of demography, social networks, social capital, health, gender, schooling in sub-Saharan Africa, and applied statistics. His research has appeared in Sex Roles, Social Indicators Research, and The Social Science Journal. He teaches courses in applied statistics, data analysis, globalization, global social problems, and introductory sociology.