Children’s household contexts and their living arrangements in sub-Saharan Africa have long been a research focus within family demography. Households are, on average, larger and more diverse than those in other world regions (Esteve et al. 2024; Pohl et al. 2025), and children often live temporarily or permanently in households without one or both of their biological parents. This is due to relatively high adult mortality, frequent union dissolution and repartnering, and fostering, a traditional child-rearing practice. The experiences and implications of orphanhood and child fostering have received substantial research attention (e.g., Beagle et al. 2010; Cotton 2021). However, the trends and links between children’s living arrangements and their educational outcomes have been less widely studied from a comparative perspective.

In a recent paper, leveraging 60 IPUMS-International census samples across 24 African countries from 1976 to 2019, we explored how children’s living arrangements are associated with school enrolment trends (Pohl, Batyra, Esteve 2026).

Educational expansion in Sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa has experienced a significant educational expansion in recent decades, yet progress toward universal school enrolment still differs across countries. Despite international initiatives like the Sustainable Development Goals, many countries struggle with low primary completion rates and limited secondary education access, often hindered by the historical legacies of colonial rule, rapid population growth, and the economic burden that education places on both governments and private households (Figure 1). Southern African nations have reached near universal school enrolment, and most East African countries, like Malawi, have seen rapid increases and nearly doubled their enrolment rates over three decades. Rates remain low in Ethiopia and South Sudan, however. In West Africa, school enrolment remains below 80% in most countries, despite notable improvements. Nonetheless, even modest percentage increases represent vast achievements in absolute terms, as educational systems have had to keep pace with population growth.

Why do living arrangements matter for school enrolment? 

While the importance of macro-level factors like public infrastructure for school enrolment is well-documented, the household environment is an understudied dimension that reflects broader enrolment inequalities. The household serves as a pivotal site for resource allocation and socialization, and is crucial in influencing a child’s development and human capital accumulation. In the African context, kinship-based relationships and family networks are core pillars of societal organization. Compared to other world regions, parental absence from the household is relatively more common and is sometimes a strategic move to enable children to access better educational opportunities (Akresh 2009; Bachan 2014). Parental absence is also frequently a response to domestic crises such as death or union dissolution. Subsequently, children living in a household without one or both biological parents may face disadvantages due to resource dilution and socioeconomic instability linked to parental absence, even though factors like remittances from migrant parents or the presence of grandparents may mitigate these gaps. 

The relationship between family structure and education is moderated by macro-level dynamics. In countries where school enrolment is high, the role of living arrangements may be less important, whereas in low-enrolment countries, the household environment remains a critical determinant of access to schooling. Furthermore, the social acceptance of family forms plays a role: where single motherhood or fostering is common, such arrangements may not carry the same educational penalties as they do elsewhere.

The living arrangements of children in sub-Saharan Africa

Children’s living arrangements across the countries included in our analysis show a remarkable degree of stability over time, though regional variations persist (Figure 2). In most East and West African countries, over half of children reside with both biological parents, while in Southern African countries the share of children in this arrangement has declined sharply, with increases in mother-only or no-parent households. West Africa maintains a relatively high prevalence of children living without biological parents. Few children in countries across all regions live in a household with only the biological father present. The relative stability over time suggests that broad economic, social, and demographic changes experienced by many sub-Saharan African countries do not necessarily translate into changes in children’s living arrangements.

The emergence of a “mother-advantage”?

The results of our regression analysis indicate that, even after controlling for individual and household characteristics, children’s living arrangements remain a significant predictor of school enrolment, though the dynamics vary over time and by country. As shown in Figure 3, children living without parents or with only their father consistently face lower odds of enrolment compared to those with both parents, and a notable “mother-only” advantage has emerged in several countries. These findings are in line with research suggesting that women may have a stronger preference for their children’s educational attainment (Crespin-Boucaud and Hotte, 2021) and that women’s decision autonomy is positively associated with preference for schooling, at least in the case of daughters (Luz and Agadjanian 2015).

Further regression results shown in Figure 4 highlight that as school enrolment increases over time, the disparities between different household structures tend to diminish; however, in more traditional or homogeneous societies, the educational gap for children not living with both biological parents remains pronounced. While enrolment is rising across countries, the persistent influence of family structure highlights that the road to educational equity is shaped by specific domestic contexts. 

Conclusions

Overall, our analysis reveals that children’s living arrangements are a crucial determinant of school enrolment in the context of educational expansion in sub-Saharan Africa. We find a “mother-advantage” in several countries, particularly in West Africa, where children living with only their mother often have higher enrolment rates than those in two-parent homes. Children residing only with their biological father or without any biological parents face persistent disadvantages. While the traditional fosterage system can sometimes facilitate educational access, children in these non-parental arrangements generally remain the most vulnerable to being left behind.

Importantly, our results suggest that the influence of living arrangements tends to weaken as countries move toward universal primary education. In nations like Botswana, where diverse family structures are socially common and enrolment is high, differences in enrolment across living arrangements have decreased substantially. However, in more traditional societies where two-parent homes are the norm, children in alternative arrangements continue to face educational disadvantages. We argue that achieving the goal of universal school enrolment requires moving beyond macro-level policies to address the barriers faced by children in different household contexts.

References

Bachan, L. (2014). Anticipatory child fostering and household economic security in Malawi. Demographic Research, 30, 1157–1188. https://doi.org/10.4054/DemRes.2014.30.40

Beegle, K., Filmer, D., Stokes, A., & Tiererova, L. (2010). Orphanhood and the Living Arrangements of Children in Sub-Saharan Africa. World Development, 38(12), 1727–1746. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2010.06.015

Cotton, C. (2021). An Enduring Institution? Child Fostering in Sub‐Saharan Africa. Population and Development Review, 47(4), 1179–1206. https://doi.org/10.1111/padr.12439

Crespin-Boucaud, J., & Hotte, R. (2021). Parental divorces and children’s educational outcomes in Senegal. World Development, 145, 105483. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2021.105483

Esteve, A., Pohl, M., Becca, F., Fang, H., Galeano, J., García-Román, J., Reher, D., Trias-Prats, R., & Turu, A. (2024). A global perspective on household size and composition, 1970–2020. Genus, 80(1), 2. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41118-024-00211-6

Luz, L., & Agadjanian, V. (2015). Women’s decision-making autonomy and children’s schooling in rural Mozambique. Demographic Research, 32, 775–796. https://doi.org/10.4054/DemRes.2015.32.25

Pohl, M., Batyra, E., & Esteve, A. (2026). School Enrolment and Living Arrangements of Children in Sub‐Saharan Africa. Population and Development Review, padr.70045. https://doi.org/10.1111/padr.70045

Pohl, M., Esteve, A., & Galeano, J. (2025). African households: National and subnational trends from censuses and surveys. Population Studies, 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/00324728.2024.2427580

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Households are core units of social organization and reproduction. Their fundamental characteristics, namely size and composition, reflect complex socio-economic and demographic changes (Bongaarts, 2001; Therborn, 2004, 2014). For instance, increases in one-person and two-person households at the expense of larger households might be driven by demographic changes, such as fertility decline or increased longevity. Household characteristics can have far-reaching implications for housing markets, intra and inter-household transfers, or gender relations. Studying household size or composition comparatively and over time allows us to understand how societies change, not only from a demographic standpoint but also from social and economic perspectives.

Comparative research on households on a global scale has remained relatively scarce due to data constraints. The newly developed open-access, open-source CORESIDENCE database aids researchers in filling this gap by providing harmonized household data on the national and subnational scales for 156 countries and 1,511 regions (Galeano et al., 2024), making it possible to study families and households on an international scale. Family researchers, like those studying fertility and mortality, can address questions about family change based on the increasing availability of empirical data, thanks to census microdata available from the Integrated Public Use of Microdata Series (IPUMS) and survey data from Demographic Health Surveys (DHS), Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS), or the European Labor Force Surveys (EU-LFS). 

Converging sizes: moving towards smaller households

Despite some definitional differences, households are considered to be suitable units for comparative research (Bongaarts, 2001). Household size refers to the number of people who are living together in a dwelling at the time of data collection. It differs substantially across countries as it reflects their diverse fertility levels (Figure 1). However, it is also determined by social norms and customs governing family-formation processes, such as norms for establishing a new, separate household upon marriage. 

Households are, on average, smallest in some East Asian countries and in Europe. Denmark leads this group, with an average household size of 1.8 people. The largest households, on average, can be found in Sub-Saharan Africa and among countries of the Arabian Peninsula and Central Asia, reaching a maximum of 8.4 people per household in Senegal, for example. The vast majority of the world’s population (around 83 percent) lives in countries with an average household size of between 2.3 and 5 persons. 

Household size has declined quite steadily over the past five decades, by approximately 0.5 people per decade. When average household size in a country falls to around two, the rate of decline slows down: countries with comparatively large households and high fertility levels will likely drive any further decline in average household size. Shrinking households in contexts with relatively small households might suggest an increase in one-person households, driven by young adults who postpone their transition to adulthood or by older adults, such as women who live alone after the death of a partner. However, households do not shrink in all contexts: socio-economic conditions may foster intergenerational coresidence or alternative household configurations that could, at least partially, counteract the reduction in household size due to fertility decline. Moreover, some countries (e.g. Senegal) have maintained large households despite demographic changes. 

Divergent structures: the roles of children and other relatives 

The internal structure of a household is called household composition. This structure is based on a reference person in the household, commonly referred to as the household head or reference person in survey and census data. Household composition varies in response to demographic changes, such as a decline in fertility or changes in family and relationship forms, such as living-apart-together or intergenerational coresidence (Furstenberg, 2019). Household composition further reflects the age structure of a population: the number of children and adults available in a society for distribution across households differs according to the underlying age composition of the population. 

Fertility decline is a core driver of shrinking household size. However, across many contexts, the presence of other relatives of the household head is another crucial component of household composition. If the number of children in the household declines but the presence of other relatives remains stable, their relative weight in the household may increase, with possible implications for care transfers, decision-making processes, and family dynamics. 

Figure 2 highlights the decline in children in the household (upper panel) across all major world regions. While children are the central driver of global heterogeneity in household size and composition, another important group contributing to global variation in household size and composition is that of other relatives (lower panel). In many countries, the presence of other relatives in absolute numbers has remained relatively unchanged. 

Conclusions 

Family patterns, socio-economic and demographic transformations, and cultural systems influence the persistent heterogeneity in household composition (Cherlin, 2012). Our results support the “convergence to divergence” hypothesis, which postulates that future family changes driven by social phenomena are certain but will produce different outcomes in different contexts (Pesando & GFC Team, 2019; Therborn, 2004, 2014). Fertility declines increase the prevalence of smaller households, yet we find persistent internal complexity of households in several countries. Interactions of global trends such as declining fertility and increasing life expectancy will result in different typologies of households, depending on the context in which such changes occur. We further anticipate that a continued decline in fertility rates will lead to smaller households and changes in household composition due to fewer living relatives available for coresidence. 

The timing and occurrence of life-course events, societal structures, and individual factors drive variation in household structures. Shifts in transfer patterns, housing demand, gender relations, the division of labour, and living arrangements are some of the possible implications of changes in household structures. The CORESIDENCE project investigates these issues by examining links between households, living arrangements, and related socio-demographic indicators. The project entails macro- and micro-level analyses across various contexts, data sources, and spatial levels. We also invite and encourage other researchers to use the CORESIDENCE database.  

Funding: CORESIDENCE is supported by an Advanced Grant funded by the European Research Council (ERC). Grant agreement ID: 101052787.

References 

Bongaarts, J. (2001). Household size and composition in the developing world in the 1990s. Population Studies, 55(3), 263–279. https://doi.org/10.1080/00324720127697

Cherlin, A. J. (2012). Goode’s World Revolution and Family Patterns : A Reconsideration at Fifty Years. Population and Development Review, 38(4), 577–607. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2012.00528.x

Esteve, A., Galeano, J., Turu, A., García-Román, J., Becca, F., Fang, H., Pohl, M., & Trias-Prats, R. (2023). The CORESIDENCE Database: National and Subnational Data on Household and Living Arrangements Around the World, 1964-2021. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.8142652

Esteve, A., Pohl, M., Becca, F., Fang, H., Galeano, J., García-Román, J., Reher, D., Trias-Prats, R., & Turu, A. (2024). A global perspective on household size and composition, 1970–2020. Genus, 80(1), 2. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41118-024-00211-6

Furstenberg, F. F. (2019). Family Change in Global Perspective: How and Why Family Systems Change. Family Relations, 68(3), 326–341. https://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12361

Galeano, J., Esteve, A., Turu, A., García-Roman, J., Becca, F., Fang, H., Pohl, M., & Trias-Prats, R. (2024). CORESIDENCE: National and subnational data on household size and composition around the world, 1964–2021. Scientific Data, 11(1), 145. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-024-02964-3

Pesando, L. M., & GFC team. (2019). Global Family Change: Persistent Diversity with Development. Population and Development Review, 45(1), 133–168. https://doi.org/10.1111/padr.12209

Therborn, G. (2004). Between sex and power: family in the world, 1900 – 2000 (Reprinted). Routledge.

Therborn, G. (2014). Family Systems of the World: Are They Converging? In. J. Treas, J. Scott, & M. Richards (Eds.), The Wiley Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of Families (1st ed., pp. 1–19). Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118374085.ch1

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