The Death of Parents and Its Consequences on Children's Educational Attainment in Burkina Faso: An Indirect Way to Evaluate the Strength of the Extended Family System

Jean-François Kobiane, Université de Ouagadougou

Sub-Saharan Africa is well known for the importance of its extended family system which allows support to vulnerable members, for instance orphans, in terms of education, health or others social issues. But in a context of declining standards of living as it is the case in Burkina faso and others Sub-Saharan Africa countries experiencing the consequences of drastic economic policies as the Structural Adjustment Programs, one expect the family system to be unable to come up all the expectations from the extended family members, in particular to afford for orphans' needs. Using event history data from a 2000 national survey that provided information concerning almost 8 453 individuals, we examine the impact of the death of parents on children's educational attainment. Especially we expect a parent's death more likely to lead to school drop-out after 1991 (era of Structural Adjustment) than before the 1990s.