Measuring Kinship Support for Children of Single Mothers in Nairobi Kenya

说明(申请人提供)：这项研究的目的是试验和评估一种新的调查工具的可行性，以收集肯尼亚内罗毕贫民窟单身母亲的年幼子女的亲属关系支助数据。这些儿童因其环境不稳定而处于不利地位，其特点是缺乏卫生设施、有限的保健设施、拥挤和低质量的住房以及广泛的失业和贫困。出生在内罗毕贫民窟的儿童比肯尼亚其他地区的儿童死亡的可能性要大得多。此外，婚前分娩、婚姻解体和成人死亡率高导致很大比例的儿童由单身母亲抚养。然而，与大多数非洲情况一样，这些单身母亲被认为从其居住和非居住的亲属那里得到了相当大的经济支持和托儿援助。然而，由于在许多非洲背景下正在进行的三个进程，亲属关系支助可能正在减少：1)由于女性迁移率高，特别是向城市地区的非正式住区迁徙，子女和亲属之间的距离增加；2)普遍存在的贫困限制了亲属提供支助的能力；3)对婚姻、妇女的作用和家庭规范的看法的转变，更多地依赖婚姻纽带而不是亲属纽带。因此，我们假设，贫困的城市单身母亲的孩子获得的亲属关系支持的类型和数量可能存在巨大差异，这反过来可能会危及他们的健康和福祉。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。首先是试行一种新的调查工具--亲属关系支持树(KST)，以收集关于亲属网络和三个领域的支持的数据：情感亲密度、托儿服务和经济支持，并记录大约500名5岁以下儿童在两个时间点上与非居住地亲属的地理接近程度的多个指标。第二是评估在高度流动的人口中在多个时间点管理这一工具的可行性。评估管理该工具的可行性的关键标志包括：1)时间 投资；2)财务成本；3)管理容易；4)自然流失。第三，评估所收集数据的可靠性，并对数据进行探索性分析。将收集亲属支持和地理空间数据的多种重复测量，以评估可靠性。探索性分析将把我们的三项支持指标与选定的地理空间措施联系起来，并审查支持如何随时间变化。通过开发一种新的数据收集方法，我们不仅将大大提高我们对撒哈拉以南非洲处境不利的单身母亲可获得的亲属关系支助的数量和类型的了解，而且还将为更广泛的家庭人口统计和儿童福祉领域作出创新贡献。

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.