Effects of Single Parenthood in the Education of Children: A Case Study of Kisauni Sub County, Mombasa County

Purpose : The purpose of the Study is to gather useful information on the effects of single parenthood in the education of children, the study was guided by the following research question “ What are the causes of single parenthood?” Literature was reviewed under the following sub headings; Causes of single Parenthood and Effects of Single Parenthood on Children Performance Methodology : The researcher employed use of survey method to gather data, simple random was used in sampling respondents. Findings : The study found out that effect of single parenthood is lack of attention with 38% followed compared to others with 05% in relation to others. Unique contribution to theory, policy and practice: the researcher recommended that County Government of Mombasa should give come up with relevant policies to address the problem in question like providing out credits to single parents and promote financial institutions that access affordable business loans to needy single parents, enabling them to develop the quality of education and life for the children and bridge the gap between such children and the well to do.


Background to the Study
Single-parents (also lone parent, solo parent and sole parent) is a parent who cares for one or more children without the physical assistance of the other biological parent in the home."Single Parenthood" may vary according to the local laws of differentiations or regions.Contemporary society is faced with numerous challenges leading to single parenthood.Chavda & Nasarg,( 2023) points at the changing age old societal beliefs as watered by industrialization, Modernization and urbanization.
Single parenthood may occur for a variety of reasons.A few possible scenarios are by choice, as in, divorce, adoption, artificial insemination, surrogate motherhood, while others are the result of an unforeseeable occurrence, such as a death, child abuse, child neglect, or abandonment by one of the biological parents, or an unmarried woman or teenage girl becoming pregnant by a short relationship.
The living and parenting arrangements fix single parents are diverse.Some single parents live in households with family, other adults or alone in home, apartments, condos or government assisted housing.When parents separate, one party, usually the primary parent, has the children the majority of the time however, non-custodian, secondary or 'non-resident' parents continue to share some type of parenting time and responsibility, to some extent, with their child.
Along with substantial prevalence of single parenthood, researchers in the United States and Western Europe have extensively examined consequences of growing upwith a single parent for children 's education (e.g., Scott, 2004;Ermisch &Francesconi, 2001;McLanahan & Sandefur, 1994).Although single parenthood is negatively associated with children's educational outcomes in most Western countries, recently comparative studies show that the strength & the negative 1relationship varies significantly across countries (Hampden Thompson & Pong,2005).Even some studies of non-Western developing societies have found no apparently negative effects of single parenthood.Lloyd and Blanc (1996) found that in sub-Saharan Africa countries, children in female-headed households tended to have greater educational opportunities in terms of school enrollments and attainment relative to children in male-headed households.
Compared to the large number of studies on single parenthood in Western industrial countries and even in some developing countries, little research has addressed the issue in societies that have recently experienced dramatic changes in family structure, especially the rapid increase in divorce in East Asia.In particular, Korea, along with Japan, has long been recognized with its very low level of divorce and low incidence of births outside of marriage linked with strong family ties (Park & Cho,1995;Kumagai, 1995).During the recent decade, however, Korea has experienced rapid increase in divorce, which makes no longer peripheral the question of single parenthood and its impacts on children's education and well-being (Raymo,Iwasawa, & Bumpass, 2004), This study examines how children of single-parent families fare in their educational outcomes in Korea.The distinctive family and public welfare systems in Korea, which will be described later in detail, provide an interesting comparison to the large bodyof research in the United States and other Western societies.Comparing family ties in the Western world, Reher (1998) illustrates that Southern European countries with strong family ties have been actually more successful in dealing with vulnerable social groups such as homelessness, unemployment, or single parenthood than countries with weak families such as the United Kingdom and the United States.In other words, the relationship between single parenthood and children's education may vary across societies, depending on broad family and other social structures surrounding single parenthood.Examining relationships between family structure and children's education in Korea, one of "strong-family" countries in which the share of single parent families has recently risen, may contribute to the extended understanding of the implications of rapid family change for children's well-being in a context where the welfare of family members has primarily relied on family ties.

Research Questions
i. What are the causes of single parenthood?ii.What are the effects of Single parenting on children's Academic performance?

Causes of single Parenthood
Divorce: This is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties.In most countries divorce requires the sanction of a court or other authority in a legal process.The legal process for divorce may also involve issues of spousal support, child custody, child support, distribution of property and division of debt.
Adoption: This is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting for another and, in so doing, permanently transfers all rights and responsibilities from the original parent or parents.Unlike guardianship or other systems designed for the care of the young, adoption is intended to effect a permanent change in status and as such requires societal recognition, either through legal or religious sanction.Historically some societies have enacted specific laws governing adoption whereas others have endeavored to achieve adoption through less formal means, notably via contracts that specified inheritance rights and parental responsibilities.Modern systems of adoption, arising in the 20 th Century, tend to be governed by comprehensive statutes and regulations.
Artificial insemination: This is the process by which sperm is placed into the reproductive tract of a female for the purpose of impregnating the female by using means other than sexual intercourse or natural insemination.In humans, it issued as assisted reproductive technology, using either sperm from the woman's male partner or sperm from a sperm donor (donor sperm) in cases where the male partner produces no sperm or the woman has no male partner (i.e., single women, lesbians).In cases where donor sperm is used the woman is the gestational and genetic mother of the child produced, and the sperm donor is the genetic or biological father of the child.
Surrogacy is an arrangement in which a woman carries and delivers a child for another couple or person.This woman may be the child's genetic mother (called traditional surrogacy), or she may carry the pregnancy to delivery after having an embryo, to which she has no genetic relationship, transferred to her uterus (called gestational surrogacy).If the pregnant woman received compensation for carrying and delivering the child (besides medical and other reasonable expenses) the arrangement is called a commercial surrogacy, otherwise the arrangement is sometimes referred to as an altruistic surrogacy.
Death is the termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism.The word refers both to the particular processes of life's cessation as well as to the condition or state of a formerly living body.Phenomena which commonly bring about death include predation, malnutrition, accidents resulting in terminal injury, and disease.
Child abuse is the physical, sexual, emotional mistreatment, or neglect of children.In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) define child maltreatment as any act or series of acts of commission or omission by a parent or other caregiver that results in harm, potential for harm, or threat of harm to child.Most child abuse occurs in a child's home, with a smaller amount occurring in the organizations, schools or communities the child interacts with.
Child neglect is defined as "the failure of a person responsible for a child's care and upbringing to safeguard the child's emotional and physical health and general well-being".Like acts of commission, harm to a child may or may not be the intended consequence.

2~2 Effects of Single Parenthood on Children Performance
In examining the relationship between single parenthood and children's education, this study distinguishes single-parent families by the causes of single parenthood (i.e., whether through the death of a parent or marital disruption) and also by sex of single parents (i.e.whether it is the father or the mother who is absent).Literature in Western countries have highlighted substantial heterogeneity in the effect of single parenthood among different types of single-parent families.In the United States, evidence suggests that children from single mother families due to the death of the father show similar levels of educational and occupational attainment compared to those from two parent families, which are significantly higher than the levels of those from divorced single-mother families (Biblarz & Gottainer, 2000;Amato & Keith,1991a).A few studies in Europe have also found the more negative effects ofdivorce than the death of a parent, especially among single-mother families (Borgers, Dronkers, & Van Praag, 1996;Kiernan, 1992;Bosman & Louwes, 1988).Astudy by Pong (1996), which is a rare study conducted in non-Western context that made a distinction between divorced and widowed single mothers, also provides evidence of the relative advantages of children in Malaysia living with a widowed mother over those living with a divorced mother.
The distinction between father-absence and mother-absence families is another important dimension to be considered.In the Netherlands, a study found better educational outcomes of children from single father families than children from single-mother families (Borgers et al 1996), In the United States, although some studies showed lower educational attainment of children from single-father families than children from single-mother families (Biblarz & Raftery, 1999), the general consensus is that children from single-mother and single4ather families do not show significant differences in educational outcomes (Downey, Ainsworth Darnell, & Dufur1998;Amato 1993).Because most previous literature on single-parent families in Western societies has focused only on father absence, very little is known about the consequences of mother absence in these societies.
The Education website indicates that both the education level of the mother and her marital status affect a child's readiness for kindergarten.Children whose mothers had lower levels of education and children from single-parent homes tended to score lower on early readiness tests.A study by the National Center for Education and Statistics followed the academic progress of children who were classified as "atrisk" for academic failure, including children from single-parent households, children whose mothers had not completed high school, and children whose mothers were on public assistance.These children consistently had lower test scores in math, reading and science.
Another limitation of previous research on single-parent families in non-Western societies is its lack of attention to the mechanisms through which family structure affects children's outcomes.Numerous studies in Western countries have pointed out the importance of poverty and economic insecurity for explaining lower educational achievement of children from single-parent families (McLanahan &Sandefur, 1994).Single-parent families tend to be poorer than are two-parent families.Given that family economic status is an important determinant of children's education, it is evident that differences in economic standing between children from the two different family types explain some of the educational differences between them.
However, studies have also demonstrated that income or other economic background does not explain all of the disadvantages associated with single parenthood (Mulkey, Cram, & Harrington, 1992).Compared to married couples, single parents tend to have the lower level of involvement in children's education as indicated by less supervision and monitoring of the child's school work (Astone &McLanahan, 1991).Given the positive influence of parental involvement on children's educational outcomes (Scott, 2004;Kim 2002), the lower level of parental involvement among single-parent families is considered to be another major reason for poorer educational outcomes of children with a single parent (McLanahan & Sandefur, 1994).Not only parental involvement in education but also the overall relationship between a parent and his or her child likely affects psychological well-being and thus ultimately educational outcomes of the child.Inter parental conflict resulting in divorce tends to deteriorate parent-child relationship as well (Amato &Keith, 1991 b), which will negatively affect the child's educational achievement.
In short, the social relationship between a child and his or her parent is another important mechanism through which the disadvantages associated with single10parenthood occur.
Compared to economic factors, very little attention has been paid to the role of parent-child interaction in non-Western societies, which is in part attributable to limited data.Detailed measures of parenting behaviors and involvement in children's school and other activities are usually not found in data available for studying family and education in non-Western countries.From the study it can be established that the most causes of hearing impairments to learners with hearing impairments is lack of attention with 38% followed by substantial heterogeneity as tabulated here above.

Effects of single parenthood on performance
From the study it is safe to say that single parenthood affects the academic achievements of learners in a myriad of ways as the percentages below reflect: Most causes of hearing impairments to learners with hearing impairments is lack of attention with 38% followed by substantial heterogeneity, low level of involvement and higher risk of poverty, low education attainment and others with 21%, 13% and 13%, 11% and 5% respectively and if mitigation measures to address the challenges are not taken, such children are likely to drop out of school and be delinquent.

Recommendations
The County Government of Mombasa should give out credits to single parents and promote financial institutions giving out affordable loans and bursaries to children in school so that the burden of parenting among single parents does not boomerang and cause self-destruction behavior on the parents and give an enabling environment to learners-a head start to this special group of learners.
They should develop a positive attitude towards parents facing challenges in Kisauni sub-county by identifying them as having equal rights and freedom like any other community member and that is their natural right to enjoy them freely so as to eliminate income inequalities moreover enhance sensitization of parents and communities, through multisectorial public awareness campaigns and other communication strategies on home grown solutions to financing education, with a view to mitigating the challenges here uncovered in this paper.
Furthermore, the National government should set up more loan schemes that use the premises and structure of the famous Higher Education Loan Board.This scheme to be both for the learners and school owners.For learners can borrow the money and pay it after the graduation especially at university level at a lower interest rate.While school owners can have are revolving financial facility which they could access money and pay it after a stipulated period of time at a lower interest rate.
Private proprietors should ensure that conducive study environment is catered for learners to perceive whatever has been taught to them.This will be realized when the best structures (classrooms) have been constructed and learning made instrumental.

Table 7 :
Effects of Single Parenthood