CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND THEORETICAL EXPECTATIONS

In Chapter 4 I discuss in detail the salience of the African extended family in buffering inequality among children. Essentially, if the African extended family represents an important institutional arrangement for the care of children, it should (i) provide wide and non discriminatory coverage, (ii) ensure that fostered children receive adequate care within the households where they are raised, and finally (iii) occur in ways that move children from less fortunate backgrounds to households where they would likely enhance their chances of survival, schooling, and socialization.

First, what can we say about the scope of coverage of the extended family system? Has it remained high, low, or unchanged over time and why? Seminal studies (Isiugo-Abanihe 1985) as well as more recent analyses (Mensch 1999) identify high levels of child fosterage in sub Saharan Africa. However, other scholars

(Madhavan 2004) recently raised questions about how well the extended family system could continue to provide care to as many children as it has done in the past. Several factors suggest that the scope of coverage of the extended family system could be in gradual or even precipitous decline. On the one hand, cultural transformations and adoption of Western practices may have led affluent middle class families to embrace nuclear family structures where they focus on their biological children only, reducing the level of altruistic fosterage. Second, even if the wealthier middle class families wanted to foster children, perhaps economic downturns limit their ability to do so. All this is occurring at a time when fertility transitions within countries unfold unevenly in such a way that middle class women are bearing fewer and fewer children compared to poorer women. As such, if indeed Westernization and family nucleation

153

are gaining ground, and economic austerity restrict altruistic behavior, the largest burden of child rearing will in future fall among the households that are least capable to provide sufficient care for those children. In that regard, the extended family system could be on a decline.

Second, even if the extended family system still offers refuge to a large proportion of children, how deeply can it support these children? This question has not escaped the attention of social scientists. Rather, a significant body of literature examines the care, education, and health outcomes of fostered children compared to biological children in sub Saharan Africa (see for instance Bledsoe et al 1988; Bledsoe and Brandon 1992; Foster 2000; Gage 2000; Kobiane et al. 2005). Together, this body of literature sheds light on microlevel effectiveness of the African extended family system as it explores what occurs within households and what difference it makes on the wellbeing of fostered children, including orphans. But, I argue that these studies only offer a partial analysis. A more complete evaluation requires attention to the scope of coverage but also to the quality of care at micro level, and to patterns of macrolevel flows. While the first two have been addressed in the literature, the missing component is the bird’s eye view on the effectiveness of the extended family system at national level. In other words, if you take a single country at a given point in time and look at the stock of fostered children – in what family types are these children growing up? Do fostered children move from households of large sibship to those with smaller sibship sizes? Do they move from economically deprived

households to households of better wealth standing? Or, is it the case that the Hamilton Rule observed by Case et al (2004) obtains – where the opportunities for fosterage accrue along familial lines only, rather than to the neediest in society? Further, do these fosterage flows differ along gender lines? These additional questions

are critical because they also contribute to shape the effectiveness of the extended family system at the macro level. Ongoing economic downturns, cultural

transformations and westernization could portend negative outcomes for child fosterage patterns at the macro level.

The effectiveness of African solidarity networks in equalizing opportunities among children depends on the directionality of flows at macro level. In other words, to what extent does the African extended family system able to distribute children in ways that hold potential for improving their wellbeing. Specifically, does the system systematically channel fostered children in ways that concentrates them in particular family types?

Figure 8.1 shows three ways in which the extended family system may circulate children within a national context; Circulation, stepwise convergence, and convergence.

Source: Eloundou-Enyegue and Kandiwa (2007)

FIGURE 8.1. Three Theoretical Modes for Children’s Circulation at Macro- Level

155

First, consider family hierarchies organized according to family size or socio- economic status. It may be the case that the system channels children from larger and poor families to be fostered in equally endowed households.

This scenario, circulation, is inequality enhancing because children end up no better than they began. Secondly, it may be the case that the system channels children from a socio-economic strata directly below to one above in a step-wise sequential manner. This scenario has moderate potential for bridging the inequality gap.

Third, it may also be the case that children from the lowest socio-economic groups leap frog the intermediate strata and end up growing up with the smallest and most economically endowed households. Theoretically one would expect this

scenario to lead to convergence in opportunities available to children. Needless to say, the directionality of flows is a necessary but insufficient condition for convergence because ultimately, it will depend on micro-level dynamics within the destination homes. Yet, it‘s equally important to understand whether fostered children are largely overrepresented in inferior family types. Last, the three modes describes above suggest an upward flow. Yet, in reality it need not be so because possibly the system may also channel children in the reverse direction but following the same patterns of stepwise or convergence. I hypothesize that macro level fosterage flows tend to ―circulate‖ children in household not unlike their original birth places, and that the quality of macro level flows within countries does not significantly differ between boys and girls. Next I present results on levels and determinants of fosterage prevalence.