Measuring Kinship Support for Children of Single Mothers in Nairobi Kenya

描述（由申请人提供）：本研究的目的是试点和评估一种新的调查工具的可行性，以收集有关生活在肯尼亚内罗毕贫民窟的单身母亲的幼儿亲属支持的数据。这些儿童处于不利的环境，其特点是缺乏卫生设施，保健设施有限，住房拥挤和质量低下，失业和贫困普遍存在。出生在内罗毕贫民窟的儿童比肯尼亚其他地区的儿童更有可能死亡。此外，由于婚前生育、婚姻破裂和成人死亡率高，很大一部分儿童由单身母亲抚养。然而，在大多数非洲情况下，这些单身母亲被认为从其居住和非居住的亲属那里得到相当大的经济支持和儿童保育援助。然而，由于许多非洲国家正在发生的三个进程，亲属关系支持可能正在下降：1)由于女性移徙率高，特别是向城市地区的非正式住区的移徙，儿童与近亲之间的距离增加；2)普遍贫困，限制了亲属提供支持的能力；3)对婚姻、女性角色和家庭规范的看法发生了转变，更多地依赖于夫妻关系而不是亲属关系。因此，我们假设贫困、城市单身母亲的孩子得到的亲属支持的类型和数量可能存在巨大差异，这反过来又可能使他们的健康和福祉处于危险之中。由于数据收集工具不足，这一假设及其背后的机制尚未得到检验。因此，我们在这个项目中有三个主要目标。首先是试点一种新的调查工具——亲属支持树（KST）——在三个领域收集亲属网络和支持的数据：情感亲密、托幼服务和经济支持，并在两个时间点记录约500名五岁以下儿童与非居住亲属的地理接近度的多个指标。其次是评估在高流动性人群中多个时间点使用该工具的可行性。评估实施该工具可行性的关键指标包括：1)时间

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The objective of this study is to pilot and assess the feasibility of a new survey instrument to collect data on kinship support for young children of single mothers living in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya. These children are disadvantaged by their precarious environment, characterised by lack of sanitation, limited health care facilities, congested and low-quality housing, and wide-spread unemployment and poverty. Children born in the slums of Nairobi are significantly more likely to die than children in the rest of Kenya. Moreover, high rates of premarital childbirth, union dissolution, and adult mortality result in a large proportion of children who are raised by single mothers. As in most African contexts, however, these single mothers are assumed to receive considerable economic support and childcare assistance from their residential and non-residential extended kin. However, kinship support is potentially declining due to three processes under way in many African contexts: 1) increased distance between children and extended kin due to high rates of female migration, particularly to informal settlements in urban locations; 2) pervasive poverty which limits the ability of kin to provide support; and 3) transformation of views on marriage, women's roles, and family norms, with a greater reliance on conjugal bonds than kinship ties. As a result, we hypothesize that there might be enormous variation in the type and amount of kinship support that children of poor, urban, single mothers receive which, in turn, could put their health and well-being at risk. This hypothesis and the mechanisms underlying it have not been tested because of inadequate data collection instruments. Thus, we have three primary objectives in this project. First is to pilot a new survey instrument - the kinship support tree (KST) - to collet data on kinship networks and support in three domain: emotional closeness, childcare provision and economic support and record multiple indicators of geographic proximity to non-residential kin on approximately 500 children under the age of five at two points in time. Second is to assess feasibility of administering this instrument at multiple time points in a highly mobile population. Key markers for assessing feasibility of administering this instrument include: 1) time investment; 2) financial cost; 3) ease of administration; and 4) attrition. Third, is to assess reliability of the data collected and conduct exploratory analysis of the data. Multiple and repeated measures of both kinship support and geo-spatial data will be collected to assess reliability. Exploratory analysis will correlate our three indicators of support with selected geo-spatial measures and examine how support varies over time. By developing a new method of data collection, we will not only significantly advance our understanding of the amount and type of kinship support available to single mothers living in disadvantaged contexts in sub-Saharan Africa, but also make innovative contributions to the broader field of family demography and child well-being.