The Cost of Being an Orphan: Psychosocial Well-being, Cognitive Development and Educational Advancement among Orphans and Abandoned Children in Five Low Income Countries
Abstract
Development policymakers and child-care service providers are committed to improving
the educational opportunities of the growing population of 153 million orphans worldwide.
Nevertheless, the relationship between orphanhood and education outcomes is not well
understood. Varying factors associated with differential educational attainment in
multiple contexts leave policymakers uncertain where to intervene. Positive Outcomes
for Orphans (POFO) is a longitudinal study, following a cohort of single and double
orphans and abandoned children (OAC) in institutional and community-based settings,
that aims to better understand the characteristics associated with child well-being.
Using cross-sectional and child-level fixed effects regression analyses on 1,480 community
based children, this manuscript examines associations between emotional difficulties,
cognitive development, educational attainment, and a variety of correlates including
trauma. Results show that factors such as trauma and lower socio-economic status are
correlated with higher emotional difficulties, and that increases in emotional difficulties
are associated with lags in cognitive development. In contrast, wealth and caregiver
literacy rates hold stronger associations with a child’s grade for age than the level
of emotional difficulties experienced by the child. These findings suggest that interventions
targeting both the psychosocial development of the child and the socioeconomic status
and education of the caregiver may help to reduce barriers to a child’s educational
attainment. Family based interventions to stabilize socioeconomic conditions or increase
caregiver education may also help overcome psychosocial challenges that otherwise
would present as barriers to the child’s educational advancement.
Type
Master's projectDepartment
The Sanford School of Public PolicyPermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/6668Citation
Escueta, Maya (2013). The Cost of Being an Orphan: Psychosocial Well-being, Cognitive Development and Educational
Advancement among Orphans and Abandoned Children in Five Low Income Countries. Master's project, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/6668.More Info
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