Files
Abstract
A tremendous increase in the number of orphans associated with a sharp rise in prime-age adult mortality
due to AIDS has become a serious problem in Sub-Saharan Africa. In fact, more than 30 percent of
school-aged children have lost at least one parent in Malawi. Lack of investments in human capital and
adverse conditions during childhood are often associated with lower living standards in the future.
Therefore, if orphans face an increased risk of poverty, exploitation, malnutrition, and poorer access to
health care and schooling, early intervention is critical so as to avoid the potential poverty trap.
The purpose of this study is to investigate the impacts of orphanhood/parental death on children’s
mortality risks, migration behaviors, and schooling outcomes, by using household panel data from
Malawi, which has the eighth-highest HIV prevalence rates in the world. A number of studies have
analyzed the relationship between parental death and children’s school enrollment, but very few have
considered mortality and mobility of orphans.
This study uses the Malawi Complementary Panel Survey (CPS) conducted by the International
Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and another institution between January 2000 and July 2004.
Since these panel data do not track individuals that move to other households, we take into account
sample attritions of children. This study uses three estimation methodologies to explore different aspects
of impacts. First, we analyze regression models with controls for various sets of household and child
characteristics and for village fixed effects to examine heterogeneous impacts of orphanhood across
different types of households. Second, we employ household fixed-effect models to test the differential
effects of orphanhood on welfare outcomes among different types of orphans living in the same
household. Third, we examine the impact of recent parental death—parental death between 2000 and
2004—on schooling outcomes.
Empirical results show that maternal orphans, as well as double orphans, tend to face higher
mortality risks and lower schooling outcomes than paternal and non-orphans do. This is especially so for
boys. Similarly, maternal and double orphans tend to move to other households more frequently.
Compared to adolescent orphans, the impact on younger orphans who enrolled in school after the
introduction of universal free primary education in 1994 is more muted, suggesting that free primary
education policies may have mitigated adverse shocks from parental death. More interestingly, the
impacts of orphanhood on schooling outcomes are significantly gender-dependent: boys face severer
negative impacts of being orphans than girls do. These empirical results are robust to sample attrition due
to mortality and mobility.