The Effects of Parental Death and Chronic Poverty on Children's Education and Health: Evidence from Indonesia

Abstract

We estimate the short- and long-term effects of maternal and paternal death on children’s school enrolment, educational attainment and health in Indonesia, and compare it with the effect of chronic poverty. We also investigate whether there are any gender dimensions of the effects. Using a sufficiently long-spanning longitudinal dataset, we find that young maternal orphans have worse educational outcomes compared with non-orphans, with the effect getting worse over time. However, we find no significant health effects of orphanhood.

Meanwhile, chronically poor children have worse health and education outcomes. Among young children, the adverse effect of maternal orphanhood on education is significantly worse than that of chronic poverty. Lastly, chronically poor orphans do not suffer adverse effects beyond the effects of chronic poverty.