The impact of female-headed households on schooling outcomes in the Mbonambi Area
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Date
2016
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Publisher
University of Zululand
Abstract
The literature is mixed in regard to the schooling outcomes of children raised in
female headed households in rural areas. Some studies have found that children
from female headed households may experience better schooling outcomes, but
high levels of poverty and inequality often prevent female heads from acting on their
preferences to invest more heavily in their children thus resulting in below average
schooling achievement of their children. Mbonambi is a rural area located within the
heart of Northern Zululand which comprises a high proportion of female relative to
male headed households primarily due to men opting for labour migration to urban
areas and only rarely returning home. The main focus of this study was to investigate the relationship between femaleheaded households and their children’s schooling outcomes compared to that of their male counterparts. The researcher used a questionnaire to conduct interviews to obtain primary data from both female and male headed households in the Mbonambi locality employing the systematic random sampling method. The researcher gathered a sample of 455 children living in 301 households, of which 193 and 108 comprised female and male headed households, respectively. The questionnaire was designed such that information was gathered on possible factors that impacted on a child’s performance which was observed by viewing the child’s most recent school report. The possible factors were obtained from the literature and included parental involvement, parental gender, parental education, parental age, household total income, family size, health status of the child. The cross tabulation Chi-squared approach as well as the more rigorous logistic regression model was employed to analyse the survey data. The logistic regression modelled the dichotomous dependent variable: schooling outcomes (pass =1 or fail=0) as the dependent variable and a set of independent variables as explanatory variables. The findings of the regression results which in most cases were corroborated by the cross tabulation statistics demonstrated that there are no differences in the schooling performance of children coming from both male and female headed households. This analysis supports the hypothesis that women have been empowered to manage their households as well as men do. Additionally the results showed that income, the education attainment of parents, a larger family size and Parental involvement in their children’s education are important factors in increasing the probability of a child performing well at school. Moreover a significant proportion of the female heads were women over fifty years of age and their children tended to perform poorly at school relative to the younger parents.The study concluded that government interventions to raise the income level of the Mbonambi community especially women in the form of access to credit and educational grants and other opportunities in the agricultural sector will have positive spinoffs in regard to the educational attainment of their children. Moreover, that strong social network can empower older women and smaller households to provide positive emotional support for their children to perform well at school.
Description
A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Administration and Law in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Commerce in the Department of Economics at the University of Zululand, South Africa, 2016
Keywords
female headed households --schooling