The Demographic, Socioeconomic and Cultural Determinants of Child Fostering in Burkina Faso

Younoussi Zourkaleini, University of Ouagadougou and Université de Montréal

In Burkina Faso, as in many others countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, children are commonly are placed in and raised by other families (often related to the parents) for periods of time that range from the short term to permanent. By examining the proportion of households which are fostering in at least one child aged under 15 as reported on the Demographic and Health Surveys, we can assess the importance of this phenomena and the form that it takes. In Burkina Faso, DHS data for 1993 and 1998-1999 show that child fosterage is quite frequent: nearly a quarter of the households are fostering in one or many children. Traditionally, child fostering doesn’t appear to depend on narrow economic calculations. Like marriage, child fostering is a way to establish or reinforce a mode of alliance between groups or families. The reasons that are usually stated for child placement are the desire to reinforce relations between relatives (who are separated by migration or marriage); to provide mutual aid within the family (assistance to grand-parents, help to a couple without children, assist a relative in a commercial or productive activity); etc. (Pilon, 1995). However, more and more authors argue that placement is a way for parents to reduce a part of their economic burden of caring for their offspring when they have many children, especially in situations where it is difficult for them to ensure a vital minimum of resources for their children. It seems that the practice of child fostering is increasingly occurring because of narrow economic considerations rather than for developing longer-term alliances. Thus, the current economic crisis is contributing to modify the nature of the practice of child mobility, and in particular, is creating an imbalance between the supply and demand of children who can be fostered in society. To address the issue of children fostering in Burkina Faso, we will analyse data from a national survey conducted in 2000, entitled: “Dynamic migratory, urban insertion and environment survey for Burkina Faso”. This survey gives detailed biographic (family life history type) information on 8,644 men and women collected from 3,517 households. The biographic individual questionnaire includes information on 17,544 births to men and women in the data, and contains fairly detailed data on the children’s lives. That allows us to know, for example, when the children first left their family: their age at departure, the motives, their destination; etc. This survey also collected a great deal of information on family origin, allowing us to study the determinants of children fostering in the country. An objective of this study is to examine, using these data, whether the rationale for child mobility has changed in recent years due to the worsening economic crisis – whether there is evidence of a sharp change in child fostering behaviours. Then, using survival data methods, we will examine the demographic, socio-economic and cultural determinants of child fostering for less than 15 years old.