Course Title: Doctor of Philosophy in Economics 

Thesis Title: Multidimensional Child Poverty and its Determinants: A Comparison between Orphans and Non-Orphans in Uganda

Supervisors: Prof Anne Daly, Dr Miranti Riyana and Tesfaye Grebremedihin

Abstract:

Child poverty is a major obstacle for the fulfillment of children’s rights. Yet the problem of child poverty is not fully documented, particularly in Africa and there is limited understanding of its causes and effects. Not much is also known about the nature, dimension and magnitude of the problem. Equally, there is inadequate experience and understanding about the appropriate policy interventions that need to be taken to address the problem.  This thesis will contribute to the limited literature on child poverty in Africa by undertaking a multidimensional child poverty analysis in Uganda, which is one of the poor countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. The thesis will utilize the recent nationally representative Uganda Demographic and Health Survey (UDHS) for the year 2006 to generate multidimensional profile for orphaned and non-orphaned pre-school (<5 years) and school (5-14 years inclusive) children. For the two groups of children, that is, pre-school and school children, I will measure well-being in two dimensions: assets (a composite indicator of socio-economic status of households in which a child lives) and health status (child nutrition) for the former; assets and education for the latter group. Due to lack of income/expenditure data in the DHS data, I will follow Sahn and Stifel (2003) and employ factor analysis technique to compute a composite poverty indicator (i.e. asset index). The Alkire and Foster (2011) dual cutoff and counting approach will be used to measure and order multidimensional child poverty. A bi-variate probit model will also be employed to explore the determinants of multidimensional child poverty.

Francis Wasswa commenced his PhD studies in June 2011. Francis holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics (Makerere University) and Master of Science in Economics (Department of Economics, University of North Texas, USA). His research interest include multidimensional poverty measurement and analysis, welfare economics, and capability approach.