Orphans and discrimination in Mozambique.

This study is motivated by the high HIV prevalence in Mozambique, which, among adults aged 15-45 years in 2005, is estimated to be about 16.2% and is projected to climb (INE et al. 2004). By 2003 an estimated 400,000 Mozambicans had died of AIDS-related causes since 1991, and this number is projected to grow rapidly through the rest of the decade to double by 2010. Due to the tendency of the pandemic to strike young adults, AIDS-related deaths leave significant numbers of orphans in their wake. A demographic and health survey carried out in 2003 found that, for children under 15 years of age, approximately one child in ten had been orphaned (paternal, maternal, or dual) (INE 2004). Demographic projections based on a time series of HIV prevalence data point also to large numbers of orphans (INE et al. 2004). Furthermore, the number of orphans appears set to climb dramatically.

Mozambican national policy specifically favors the integration of orphans into substitute or extended families. This mirrors policy in other highly afflicted countries such as Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Uganda (UNAIDS 1999). It has the advantage that orphans remain integrated within a family. This approach to coping with orphaning also implies that the resources available to families that accept orphans and the allocation of those resources within the household become of policy interest.

Generally, resources are tight within Mozambican households. In 2002-3, 58% of all children lived in households that were absolutely poor based on a consumption-based metric. Although nonbiological children tend to concentrate in households that are on average slightly better off (Nhate 2004), resource availability remains distinctly limited and difficult decisions regarding resource distribution have to be made. As noted by Hamilton (1964), biological bonds are important in the distribution of resources within the household implying the potential for discrimination against nonbiological children.

Intrahousehold resource allocations are difficult to measure directly; and household consumption surveys rarely attempt to do so. To partially counter this difficulty, Deaton, Ruiz-Castillo, and Thomas (1989) proposed a method, labeled "outlay equivalence," whereby spending on children is measured indirectly via spending on adult goods. The intuition is that the addition of a child should imply increased spending on goods for children. The budget constraint then implies reduced spending on adult goods. Since, particularly in developing countries, pure adult goods are much easier to identify than pure children's goods, the method has become popular.

Application has often focused on intrahousehold discrimination of girls relative to boys. Using Deaton's approach, evidence from Asia often shows that girls are at a disadvantage relative to boys in the allocation of family resources (Deaton 1989; Behrman 1990; Gibson and Rozelle 2004; Kingdon 2005). On the other hand, studies in African countries tend not to find statistically significant evidence of discrimination against girls (Deaton 1989; Haddad and Reardon 1993).

The present study employs the outlay equivalence approach to analyze potential discrimination in resource allocation within households against children who are not the biological descendant of the household head in Mozambique. Specifically, this study seeks to: (a) identify goods that are demographically separable from children (adult goods), and (b) test for discrimination against children who are not the biological descendant of the household head in the intrahousehold allocation of consumption.

Similar to Nhate (2004), this analysis compares children who are biological versus nonbiological descendants of the household head rather than orphans specifically. The available data base on consumption does not permit the separation of orphans. For the age group fifteen and under, about one child in four is not the biological descendant of the household head. For an unknown but likely substantial fraction of these children, the circumstance of being fostered reflects stress, such as the death of a parent, resulting in placement of the child with another family. We hypothesize that these children are at risk of being discriminated against. Nhate (2004) previously found that Mozambican children who are not biological descendants of the household head were less likely to attend school in both rural and urban areas.

Nevertheless, an important subset of children who are not the biological descendant of the household head is not likely to be at risk for discrimination. In particular, weak geographic coverage of complete primary school causes some families living in areas without access to primary school to send children to live with relatives or friends in areas where primary school is available. It may be plausibly assumed that children who are sent by their parents to live with another family in order to attend school are less likely to be discriminated against than children, such as orphans, who are forced into fostering due to some negative shock. As we are not capable of distinguishing between these two groups of children in our sample, we view our results as a lower bound on the degree of discrimination within families against the target group of interest.

Data and Methodology

Data

We use the national representative household survey on living conditions (IAF) undertaken by the National Institute of Statistics in 2002-2003 (INE 2004). The survey covered 8,700 households corresponding to about 44,000 individuals. Expenditure data were collected on 863 different goods (food and non-food). For our purpose, we are interested in identifying adult goods that children do not consume. The addition of a child (with the concomitant expenses necessary to support that child) reduces the income available to spend on adult goods. For normal goods, consumption should decline. Six candidate adult goods were identified; adult clothes; alcoholic beverages (inside and away from home); personal care (hair treatment, nail products, lipstick, "mulala," lotion, etc.); public and private transportation services; tobacco; and food and soft drinks away from home.

We conduct the analysis both at the national level and by rural and urban zones in order to capture differential characteristics of rural and urban families. Table 1 presents summary statistics (means) for the two subsamples and the national sample. The analysis is performed separately for poor and nonpoor households. Poor households are defined as those living below a poverty line that reflects basic needs (MPF, IFPRI, Purdue University 2004). Resource constraints for poor households are more severe and may influence intrahousehold resource allocation decisions. Finally, following standard practice, 1,046 households without any children and 538 households with only a single household member were excluded from the sample leaving a total of 7,116 households with at least one child present in the final sample. Sample weights are used throughout the analysis to take into account the stratified nature of the sample.

The average budget share of the candidate adult goods as a group is 13%. Tobacco and adult clothes are the goods that have the highest share among all adult goods. The "food and soft drinks" group and "personal care" represent small shares of total expenditures (0.2% and 0.6%, respectively). Generally, budget shares for adult goods are higher in urban than in rural areas (15 % vs. 11%). Overall, the shares for adult goods observed in Mozambique are similar to values found in other developing countries (Haddad and Reardon 1993; Gibson and Rozelle 2004).

Urban households consume on average more than rural households and also have slightly larger household sizes. The largest demographic child category is children aged 0-5 years. As one would expect, biological children represent a higher proportion on average compared to nonbiological children for each age group.

Method

We follow the method developed by Deaton, Ruiz-Castillo, and Thomas (1989)--except our objective is to study potential discrimination between children who are direct descendants of the household head (labeled "biological") and those who are not (labeled "nonbiological").

First, household members were categorized into one of ten demographic groups according to the groups shown in table 1. Children (less than sixteen years of age) were divided into six groups: three each for the biological and nonbiological categories. The remaining four categories consist of adults at different age levels. The next step consisted of the identification of adult goods. Adult goods are goods which have no relationship to a specific household demographic class namely children hence are referred to as demographically separable. To test whether good i is truly an adult good, we used the linear model of Deaton, Ruiz-Castillo, and Thomas (1989): a

(1) [p.sub.i][q.sub.i] = [[alpha].sub.0i] + [[alpha].sub.1i][X.sub.G] + [J.summation over (j=1)][c.sub.ij][n.sub.j] + [d.sub.i]z + [[epsilon].sub.i]

where [p.sub.i][q.sub.i] is expenditure on the candidate adult good, [X.sub.G] is total expenditures on adult goods, [n.sub.j] is the number of members in each demographic category j (with j = 1, ... J), z is a vector of other explanatory variables included in the model, and [[epsilon].sub.i] is the error term.