Angels in the Dust: Education Outcomes of Orphans in Africa

Do Africa's orphans attend school less than non-orphans? Does poverty equalise all children in terms of school enrolment? Does the government in Africa support orphans that they are finally better off than non-orphans? Answers to these questions are not obvious and this study will analyse data from 58 Demographic and Health Surveys of 36 African countries between 2005-2019 for answering them. The results indicate that orphans are significantly disadvantaged in terms of education. They study less than non-orphaned children in general and within the same households. We found out that maternal orphans are less disadvantaged than double orphans, paternal orphans do not experience any disadvantage. Moreover, orphaned girls study less than orphaned boys. These results are consistent with the previous studies. Additionally, having other orphans in the family makes orphans attend school more since they can share the total amount of household chores. Especially, these are female orphans who make the others better-off. In contrast to existing studies, it was proven that siblings are better-off if they have orphans in their family.