RELATIVES IN RESIDENCE: THE IMPORTANCE OF FATHERS AND OTHER HOUSEHOLD MALES IN PREDICTING MOZAMBICAN SCHOOL ENROLLMENT Sara Lopus, PhD
[email protected] Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies ABSTRACT Children typically receive investments from their fathers, but absent fathers often invest at low levels. In fathers’ absence, what types of non-fathers invest heavily in children? This paper investigates educational participation as a reflection of childhood investments on Ibo Island, Mozambique, where only one third of school-aged children live with their biological fathers. Father-present children generally attend school at the highest rates. Stepchildren and father- absent relatives (e.g. grandchildren, nieces) attend school at comparably high rates if any co- residing children are father-present. This may signal high altruism among present fathers toward some non-offspring. Consistent with this result, a fixed-effects model indicates that, within the same household, adult males appear to invest equally in their own children, relatives, and stepchildren. However, prejudicially lower investments are made in children who are unrelated to the household’s adult males; this result has strong negative implications for the wellbeing of African children who live with non-relatives. KEYWORDS: Fathers, Education, African families, Family structure, Fixed effects models 1 Adults make monetary and time-based investments in children’s quality for a variety of reasons, including altruism, old age security (Becker, 1992), and the evolutionary drive to protect their genetic relatives (W. D. Hamilton, 1964). Often, children receive their principal monetary investments from their biological fathers, although the degree to which fathers feel driven to invest may vary meaningfully with their presence in the household.