Single Parent Effect on Children's Well-Being and Educational Attainment (Evidence from Indonesia)

Abstract

Human capital investment such as access to education and better nutrition has been considered as one of the way for poor households to avoid intergenerational poverty. Better education and nutrition for children will improve productivity in the future. Some programs related to poverty reduction has launched by the Government of Indonesia to guarantee children from poor families to easily access education and receive better nutrition and health care. However, there is no program targeting single mother household. This paper presents the effect of single mother on children well-being and education attainment. We use data from Indonesia Family Life Survey (IFLS) and take specific variables such as parent marital status, per capita expenditure, access to health and education facilities, and children test scores. Byusing Structural Equation Model (SEM) and comparing the effects of divorced single-mother families and widowed single-mother families on boys and girls well-being, we find that divorce and larger household size appear to increase household poverty. In the second part of the equation, higher poverty proving to be decreasing the children's educational attainment. JEL classification: D19, I00, J12