Biological versus Foster Children Education: the Old-Age Support Motive as a Catch-up Determinant? Some Evidence from Indonesia

Karine Marazyan (1)

1 CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne

This paper aims at explaining differences in education among foster-children and between foster and biological children in developing countries. Foster-children whose biological parents are alive may provide old-age support for both their host and biological parents. Therefore foster-children have lower returns to education than biological children and should receive less human capital investment in household where both types of children live together. However, in households where foster-children are alone, host parents will over-invest in their education to ensure that the expected old-age support will equal a minimum amount to survive. Using data from Indonesia, we provide some evidence supporting our hypothesis.

Mots clés: Household Structure; Child Fostering; Sibling Rivalry

Domaines: Economies et finances

Karine Marazyan. Biological versus Foster Children Education: the Old-Age Support Motive as a Catch-up Determinant? Some Evidence from Indonesia. 2008. ⟨halshs-00290644v1⟩