Parental Welfare Status and Children’s Educational

Parental Welfare Status and Children’s Educational Attainment among the

Urban Poor

Dr. Diana Abdul Wahab, Department of Applied Statistics, Faculty of Economics & Administration, Universiti Malaya. [email protected]

Dr. Nurulhuda Mohd Satar, Department of Economic, Faculty of Economics & Administration, Universiti Malaya. [email protected]

Background/Objectives

• Poverty which constitutes of lower capital—income and education—provided by the parents produces lower quality output i.e. children educational attainments.

• Welfare as resources may helps to finance education.

• To examine empirically the link between parental welfare receipt and children's educational outcomes.

Subject/Methods

• Convenience sampling capturing children's exam scores for a standardized national examination at the age of 15 among adolescents in Klang Valley area (n=566) .

Results

• Changes in parental income have a significant impact of children educational outcomes, and the marginal effects of welfare status is positive among the urban poor.

Conclusion

• Opens avenue for future research on the net use of welfare resources for education among those who are in vulnerable situations.

Introduction

• Children from welfare recipient families were known to have lower academic achievement and development level because of poverty (Zill et. al., 1991).

• They were also found to have more discipline problems (Zill et. al., 1991).

• However, the effect of welfare programs which translates into the increase family income and indirectly improved children education achievement (Morris et. al., 2002).

• Main aim: how childhood circumstances affect children educational performance using major exam scores.

Introduction

• Parents who are concerned with their children’s future will spend for their children’s human capital investment i.e. schooling.

• To further our understanding on how parents allocate their limited resources within their family, we can take look at Becker’s intergenerational model (see Becker, 1965).

• Parent’s provision for their children can be divided into two components:• The endowment component is parental attributes that potentially benefit their

children such as their human capital, economic resources, social status, network, genetic inheritance, and cognitive ability.

• The investment component is parent’s intentional behavior to spend money and time that influences their children’s outcomes i.e. schooling and occupation.

Measuring poverty

• There is not a single restrictive definition for poverty due to its multidimensional aspects and the lack of standardized measurement (Watts, 1968). • The most common measure for poverty is financial difficulty. • Poverty can be seen as how much an individual can do without resources.

• Poverty may affect children’s educational outcomes due to the lack of necessary resources.

• Family income commonly used as a measure for financial condition, but it also provides other family attributes.• such as social status, physical safety and environment, parental education,

time spent for children, health and nutrition, and moral support for children.

Poverty measures and social protection in Malaysia• Malaysia in 2019:

• Median income RM7,981, KL RM10,548.• Poverty rate 5.6% (revised poverty line income from RM980 RM2,208 (B10), Gini 0.393.• There were 2.91 mi B40 (income < RM4,849)

• Malaysian government has instituted many welfare programs under the Caring Society concept.• N = 478, 677 recipients of financial assistance from JKM. 10,610 from KL.• KL has the lowest ratio of financial assistance per capital to state GDP (UPM Consultancy, 2017).

• The Department of Social Welfare (JKM) administers most of the federal-based financial assistance programs in tow major groups:• productive: children, prisoners, poor, single-parent.• unproductive: sick, elderly, and severely disabled.

• Another form of assistance from Zakat for Muslims through Islamic institutions (e.g. Majlis Agama and Baitulmal).

Urban poor

• Malaysia has been considered itself to be successful at its mission to eradicate poverty since 1970 through the implementation of the New Economic Policy. • however, this is measured based off the Poverty Line Income (PLI) which is set too low and

that prices have been increasing constantly since 1970.

• In Kuala Lumpur particularly—where the incidence of poverty is virtually non-existent based off the mentioned measure—those in the B40 (below 40% of income distribution) group are still struggling to make a living.

• A study by UNICEF in 2018 mentioned that almost all the children living in low-cost flats in Kuala Lumpur are in relative poverty while 7 percent are in absolute poverty.

• Currently, the incidence of poverty is higher in rural areas than in urban areas. • However, despite the B40 in Kuala Lumpur having higher incomes than the B40 in other parts

of Malaysia, life is not any better for them as the living cost in Kuala Lumpur is very expensive compared to the rest.

Urban poor

• According to a publication by Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), inflation is higher when a region is more urban, and inflation is higher as we go down the different level of income group. • This makes the urban poverty, the B40 of the most developed region in Malaysia

being the most vulnerable to price changes.

• The same study by UNICEF found that the level of poverty and malnutrition among children living in the low-cost housing in Kuala Lumpur is indeed higher than the national average. • At the same time, less than 4% of them are receiving any kind welfare assistance in

the form of transfers (Zakat or JKM).

• That is why we are interested in studying the urban poverty, specifically Kuala Lumpur the center of the wider Klang Valley metropolitan.

Poverty and welfare transfer

• Antipoverty programs increase parent’s self-sufficiency, improve children wellbeing, increase family resources.

• Transition from welfare to work: benefits children, positive role model, parent self-esteem, sense of control, higher earning.

• Malaysia is one of the countries that has been very reliant on government transfers. • Aside from subsidies, welfare transfer is one of the common practice of governments transfer

were channeled through the JKM under the KPWKM. • There are thirteen different cash transfer programs aiming for the welfare of people from

different groups and needs which were either monthly transfer or a one-time only transfer. • According to JKM’s annual statistical report in 2016, the number of cases of cash transfer

recipients increased 2.4 times over the period of 2007 to 2015 (JKM Annual Report, 2016).

• This shows that there is an increasing reliance of welfare transfer by the people, which would undoubtedly encourage the deepening of welfare dependency culture.

The impact of income on education

• Studies on the impact of income on children’s education attainment found a positive association between parental income and children educational outcomes (Duncan et. al., 2011; Lacour & Tissington, 2011), even after controlling for parental education and occupational types (Hill & Duncan, 1987).

• The effect of income on children education achievement is more predominant for cognitive skills than for behavior and health (Duncan & Brooks-Gunn, 1997).

• Changes in the income among the lower distribution is also found to have a stronger impact on children educational outcomes compared with families in the higher income group (Dearing et. al., 2006). • This is because small changes in income in the lower end represents larger

proportion of change which may substantially reduce deprivation (Duncan et al., 2011).


• The effect of poverty is stronger in the early childhood than adolescent (Duncan & Brooks-Gunn, 1997).

• Family economic condition is strongly associated with children school completion, and the impact is more prevalent among children below the age five compared to children between the ages of 6 - 15 years old (Duncan et. al., 1998).

• Heckman’s conjecture: early family environment strongly affects productivity of later inputs such as schooling, earning, and occupation (Heckman, 2006).


• Family resources play an important role in determining the achievement of students:• Financial capital (Hill & Duncan, 1987; Duncan et. al., 2011; Lacour &

Tissington, 2011; Dearing at. al., 2006).

• Human capital i.e. parent education (Peters & Mullis, 1997), mother’s occupation (Hill & Duncan, 1987).

• Social capital i.e. parental involvement (Pavalache-Ilie & Tirdia, 2015; Ubale et al., 2016; Park, Stone & Holloway, 2017).

Literature

• Welfare dependency may have negative intergenerational effects increasing welfare take up in the second generation, but the effects appear smaller and qualitatively different from the negative effects caused by poverty (Fallesen & Bernardi, 2018).

• Adolescents in welfare-reliant families experience more disruptions in their schooling (e.g., school changes and residential mobility, expulsions and suspensions) and receive less financial support from their families both of which impact on their chances of completing high school and avoiding the welfare roll (Bubonya & Clark, 2021).

• Parental benefit receipt lowers the child's educational attainment, and this subsequently results in more benefit receipt. The remaining effect is more likely related to beliefs and norms than to information provision (Boschman et al, 2019).

Negative impact of welfare

• Malaysia lacks the precedent for studies on the effect of welfare on children’s education which makes it an even more important subject to pursue.

• Welfare receipt produces temporary relief, however, it is also found to have a negative impact:• in the long run children from welfare families have a higher tendency to

continuously be welfare dependent (Hill & Duncan, 1987). • negative role-model by parents (Mead, 1992; Mead, 1997)• welfare stigma on self-esteem (Rain- water 1982; Goodban 1985; Nichols-

Casebolt 1986)• stigma by peers and teachers (Rainwater 1982; Popkin 1990; Edin et al. 1999;

Seccombe 1999)

Lesson from the US study

• It is important to note that almost all these studies were based on the sample in the United States, and the samples are usually very specific in demography. • A closer look tells us that the negative effects of welfare on child’s education attainment is more

consistent among white children.

• As for African American children, the results were less significant, mixed and even show indication of positive effect of welfare (Ku, 2001; Boggess, 1998; McLanahan, 1985).

• A lot of them are also focused on a single-parent household where the mothers are the head of the households, because a single-parent household held the biggest portion of those who receipt welfare assistance in the United States.

• As there has yet been any studies relating to impact of welfare receipt towards children’s development in Malaysia, it is time we start to expand the knowledge in this so that we know where we stand in the effectiveness of our welfare system in supporting the growth of those in the lower social class, particularly the children. This can avoid expanding the gap between the poor and the riches in Malaysia even further.

Confounding factors

1. Parent education has a strong positive impact on their children’s education outcome, and mother’s education was found to have a larger impact (Peters & Mullis, 1997)a) Student lowers academic ambition because they don’t see it as valuable, ambition

affects efforts, performance decrease as well.b) parents with higher level of education also have open and emotional stable

children (Sutin et. al., 2017).c) families with reading materials available at home improves schooling (Peters &

Mullis, 1997).

2. Mother’s occupationa) family with working mothers is different from family with staying at home

mothers. b) while working mothers increase their daughter’s labor market participation, but

less time spent for families may lead to less schooling for her children (Hill & Duncan, 1987).

Confounding factors

3. Father’s unemployment: a) Mechanism = financial strains, changing parenting practices, and children’s

perception to parent as role model.

4. Psychology: a) low income may influence parent’s emotional stability that may leads to stress,

dysphoria, marital conflict, spousal irritability, and greater hostility towards children (Conger et. al., 1994).

5. Family size: a) data from MFLS-2 shows that children from single-motherhood families were

found to be more likely to have lower income and lower occupation later in life (Pong, 1996).

b) children with a greater number of siblings had poorer secondary school attainments due to the sharing of economic resources within family.

Standardized tests

• Major test (public school):• UPSR

• PT3

• O Level

• Other types of schools:• Private (Islamic religious school’s

STAM, Chinese independent high school’s UEC, international school).

Primary

• Free, compulsory

Lower secondary

• Free, optional but widely used

Academic OR vocational

• O Level

• Vocational certificate

Research Methodology

Fieldwork• Questionnaire design, obtained ethic clearance and approval from Ministry

of Education. Also from District Education Office, and school administrations.

• Take home self-administered survey questions filled by Form 4 students with instructions given prior. • Gifts to increase participations.

• Data were entered by three Research Assistants.• Information on (n=566, p=122):

• parent education, income, occupation, salary, welfare recipient (source & amount), residence, sib size.

• Student’s info: education, exam scores, school, streams.• Support system: book, gadget, facilities at home, tuition.• Parent’s involvement, sports, teacher’s involvement, home environment, stress,

drug/smoke/bully.

Fieldwork• Target group are those who receives welfare assistance then they are likely

within the B40 in Kuala Lumpur. • Thus, we narrowed down to working with samples from the government’s program

for low-cost apartment, Projek Perumahan Rakyat, PPR.

• The sample target was narrowed down to only form 4 students as Ministry of Education Malaysia, MoE, does not allow conducting survey on from 3 and form 5 students.

• In order to conduct survey in schools, there is a three-step process. • Seek approval from MoE, where the project’s research proposal, research

instruments along with the complete list of intended schools to be surveyed were provided to and reviewed by them.

• Seek approval from the state office for education (JPWPKL in KL). • Seek approval from the principals of each school. Despite the approval from MoE

and JPWPKL, the school principal is not obligated to allow the survey to happen and the decision is at their complete discretion.

Fieldwork• The schools that were selected for the survey were all schools that are with

5km radius from a PPR. • The reason for this is to ensure that the sample include as many PPR students as we

can.

• The first part is meeting the students and distributing the questionnaires to the students along with a short briefing on the study and how they are able to help by participating in the study.

• The second was to collect back questionnaires that were submitted by students after they have received consent from their parents and after the parents’ part of the questionnaire was filled in. • This is was done with the help of the teachers in each school.

• The token of appreciation was also distributed by to the students by the teachers.

School list

• SMK LEMBAH SUBANG

• SMK SEKSYEN 10 KOTA DAMANSARA

• SMK (P) SERI PANTAI

• SMK BANDAR TUN RAZAK

• SMK COCHRANE

• SMK DESA PETALING

• SMK PETALING

• SMK SERI BINTANG SELATAN

• SMK SERI SENTOSA

• SMK SETAPAK

INDAH

• SMK TINGGI SETAPAK

• SMK BATU MUDA

• SMK DATO' IBRAHIM YAACOB

• SMK JINJANG

• SMK ST. MARY (M)

• SMK TAMAN EHSAN

• SMK CONVENT JALAN PEEL

• SMK DANAU KOTA

• SMK DATOK LOKMAN

• SMK DHARMA

• SMK KEPONG BARU

• SMK MIHARJA

• SMK RAJA ABDULLAH

• SMK RAJA ALI

• SMK SEKSYEN 5 WANGSA MAJU

• SMK ST. GABRIEL (M)

• SMK TAMAN DESA

• SMK TAMAN MALURI

• SMK TAMAN SERI RAMPAI

• SMK WANGSA MELAWATI

• SMK ZON R1 WANGSA MAJU


• SMK DANAU KOTA


• SMK DHARMA

• SMK KEPONG BARU

• SMK MIHARJA


• SMK RAJA ALI



• SMK TAMAN DESA





Descriptive statistics

Variable Obs Mean Std. Dev. Min Max

momhe 433 2.13 0.57 1 4

dadhe 404 2.16 0.57 1 5

gurhe 19 2.32 0.67 1 4

dadjobhr 420 2.83 1.33 1 4

dadincome 566 2533.01 2495.07 0 15000

momjobhr 262 11.65 141.92 1 2300

momincome 566 1473.95 2241.86 0 16000

inadequate 506 1.70 0.46 1 2

wsource 566 0.26 0.44 0 1

welfarelen~h 144 2.59 0.95 1 5

welfareamo~2 129 1.29 0.55 1 3

sex 565 0.39 0.49 0 1

yob 549 2002.97 0.29 2002 2008

sibno 560 2.52 1.53 1 10

sibsize 554 3.74 1.64 1 11

together2 563 1.46 1.18 1 6

race 565 1.34 0.61 1 4

welfarefmly 531 2.01 0.65 1 3

stream 537 2.42 1.41 1 5

f3schooltype 556 1.12 1.59 1 30



f3students 449 28.32 5.89 1 40

f3scholar 495 1.89 0.31 1 3

j1 488 4.72 1.34 1 6

j2 491 4.25 1.44 1 6

j3 484 3.68 1.57 1 6

j4 485 3.36 1.49 1 6

j5 503 2.60 1.68 1 6

j6 493 2.81 1.32 1 6

k1 513 5.30 1.09 1 6

k2 514 5.27 1.05 1 6

k3 512 4.49 1.03 1 6

k4 518 4.77 1.22 1 6

k5 514 4.65 1.07 1 6

absent2 341 4.59 10.33 0 96

classno 476 3.60 2.29 1 14

classtotal 489 8.08 3.11 1 42

counselling 553 1.05 0.40 1 9

counsel 548 1.73 0.44 1 2

UPSR scores

PT3 scores

Mother’s education

Father’s education

Modelling

Decision Tree

• Tree-based methods for regression, segmenting the predictor space into a number of simple regions.

• We divide the predictor space—that is, the set of possible values for X1, X2,..., Xp — into J distinct and non-overlapping regions, R1, R2,...,RJ.

• For every observation that falls into the region Rj, we make the same prediction, which is simply the mean of the response values for the training observations in Rj.

• The goal is to find boxes R 1 ,...,R J that minimize the RSS, given by

DT algorithm

• Top-down and greedy approach that is known as recursive binary splitting:• top-down: splitting begins at the top of the three

• greedy: best split is made at that particular step

• Consider all predictors X1,..., Xp, and all possible values of the cutpoints for each of the predictors, and then choose the predictor and cutpoint such that the resulting tree has the lowest RSS.

• R1(j,s) = {X|Xj < s} and R2(j,s) = {X|Xj ≥ s}

• We seek the value of j and s that minimize the equation

Boosting DT

• DT is suitable for non-linear and complex relationship between features and the response.

• More powerful model can be constructed using bagging, random forest, and boosting.

• Creating multiple copies of the original dataset by growing trees sequentially using information from previously grown trees.

• Combine all trees to create a single predictive model.

Results of recursive binary splitting

• Sibsize has the highest variable importance measure. Sibsize < 2.5 has higher scores.

• Mixed results for momincomeand dadincome.

• Fitting one regression tree may lead to overfitting, so we apply boosting.

Variable importance

var rel.inf

dadincome 32.271105

sibsize 22.393252

momincome 15.761853

dadhe 8.410623

momhe 6.603165

malay 5.230048

sex 4.661442

wsource 2.961999

ppr 1.706513

Association rule mining

• Discover association between itemsets that occur together frequently.

• Let K be a formal context with minsupp (min support) and minconf (min confidence) ∈ [0,1].

• The association rule mining problem consists now of:• determining all pairs A → B of subsets of M whose support supp(A → B) :=

supp(A ∪ B) is above the threshold minsupp

• confidence conf(A → B) :=supp(A∪B)/supp(A) is above the threshold minconf

Association rule mining results

• Items most related to above median score:• Parent involve in homework

• Low absent

• Happy to go to school

• No peer conflict

• Encouragement to continue higher education

• No health problem

• Study group

• No family financial problem

• Items most related to below median score:• Absenteeism

• Not comfortable at home

• Parents don’t encourage to continue higher education

• No parent’s involvement in homework

• No aspiration to continue higher education

The welfare effect on exam scores

var rel.inf

faminc 33.0852298

sibsize 31.5075953

wsource 9.4471928

sex 8.8299787

malay 8.1723807

ppr 4.1683409

momhe 3.8276407

dadhe 0.9616412

Marginal effects

faminc sibsize

Marginal effects

welfare ppr residential

Marginal effects

momhe dadhe

Model performance

Conclusion

Investing in disadvantaged children

• Public policy that promotes fairness and social justice also promotes productivity in economy a society.

• Early intervention have higher returns than later intervention e.g. public job training, police expenditure, convict rehab (Heckman, 2006).

Summary

• The welfare effect: positive among urban poor in our sample.

• Increases in parental income are associated with increased test scores.

• Parent's education has a strong association with children’s attainment.

• Sibling size has a negative impact especially when they are larger than five.

In general, changes in parental income have a significant impact of children educational outcomes, and the marginal effects of welfare status is positive among urban poor (income < RM2,208).

More delicate studies need to be done on the net use of welfare resources for education among those who are in vulnerable situations.

Constraints and suggestions for future research• Prolonged dependency on welfare assistance creates a welfare dependency

culture in which children follows their parent behavior towards welfare expectancy. • Children who were raised in welfare recipient families were more likely to be

continuously dependent on the welfare system (Hill & Duncan, 1987).

• This paper uses PT3 scores as proxy for future academic and labor market success, but future studies should also include other dimensions e.g. school completion, higher education participation, etc.

• Map data from e-Kasih, tax records, educational establishments annual reports.

• Data on the timing of poverty, parent health status, school characteristics, cognitive/noncognitive stimulation at age 3, and family conflicts.

Thank you

This work was supported by the Ungku Aziz Centre for Development Studies.



RA: Izzati Afiqah Ab Razak

Parental Welfare Status and Children’s Educational Attainment among the

Urban Poor



Background/Objectives

• Poverty which constitutes of lower capital—income and education—provided by the parents produces lower quality output i.e. children educational attainments.

• Welfare as resources may helps to finance education.

• To examine empirically the link between parental welfare receipt and children's educational outcomes.

Subject/Methods

• Convenience sampling capturing children's exam scores for a standardized national examination at the age of 15 among adolescents in Klang Valley area (n=566) .

Results

• Changes in parental income have a significant impact of children educational outcomes, and the marginal effects of welfare status is positive among the urban poor.

Conclusion

• Opens avenue for future research on the net use of welfare resources for education among those who are in vulnerable situations.

Introduction

• Children from welfare recipient families were known to have lower academic achievement and development level because of poverty (Zill et. al., 1991).

• They were also found to have more discipline problems (Zill et. al., 1991).

• However, the effect of welfare programs translates into the increase in family income. It also has an indirect impact on improved children education achievement (Morris et. al., 2002).

• Main aim: how childhood circumstances affect children educational performance using major exam scores.

Introduction

• Parents who are concerned with their children’s future will spend for their children’s human capital investment i.e. schooling.

• To further our understanding on how parents allocate their limited resources within their family, we can take look at Becker’s intergenerational model (see Becker, 1965).

• Parent’s provision for their children can be divided into two components:• The endowment component is parental attributes that potentially benefit their

children such as their human capital, economic resources, social status, network, genetic inheritance, and cognitive ability.

• The investment component is parent’s intentional behavior to spend money and time that influences their children’s outcomes i.e. schooling and occupation.

Measuring poverty

• There is not a single restrictive definition for poverty due to its multidimensional aspects and the lack of standardized measurement (Watts, 1968). • The most common measure for poverty is financial difficulty. • Poverty can be seen as how much an individual can do without resources.

• Poverty may affect children’s educational outcomes due to the lack of necessary resources.

• Family income commonly used as a measure for financial condition, but it also provides other family attributes.• such as social status, physical safety and environment, parental education,

time spent for children, health and nutrition, and moral support for children.

Poverty measures and social protection in Malaysia• Malaysia in 2019:

• Median income RM7,981, KL RM10,548.• Poverty rate 5.6% (revised poverty line income from RM980 RM2,208 (B10), Gini 0.393.• There were 2.91 mi B40 (income < RM4,849)

• Malaysian government has instituted many welfare programs under the Caring Society concept.• N = 478, 677 recipients of financial assistance from JKM. 10,610 from KL.• KL has the lowest ratio of financial assistance per capital to state GDP (UPM Consultancy, 2017).

• The Department of Social Welfare (JKM) administers most of the federal-based financial assistance programs in tow major groups:• productive: children, prisoners, poor, single-parent.• unproductive: sick, elderly, and severely disabled.

• Another form of assistance from Zakat for Muslims through Islamic institutions (e.g. Majlis Agama and Baitulmal).

Urban poor

• Malaysia has been considered itself to be successful at its mission to eradicate poverty since 1970 through the implementation of the New Economic Policy.

• In Kuala Lumpur particularly—where the incidence of poverty is virtually non-existent based off the previous measure—those in the B40 group are still struggling to make a living.

• A study by UNICEF in 2018 mentioned that almost all the children living in low-cost flats in Kuala Lumpur are in relative poverty while 7 percent are in absolute poverty.

• Currently, the incidence of poverty is higher in rural areas than in urban areas. • However, despite the B40 in Kuala Lumpur having higher incomes than the B40 in

other parts of Malaysia, life is not any better for them as the living cost in Kuala Lumpur is very expensive compared to the rest.

Urban poor

• According to a publication by Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), inflation is higher when a region is more urban, and inflation is higher as we go down the different level of income group. • This makes the urban poverty, the B40 of the most developed region in Malaysia

being the most vulnerable to price changes.

• The same study by UNICEF found that the level of poverty and malnutrition among children living in the low-cost housing in Kuala Lumpur is indeed higher than the national average. • At the same time, less than 4% of them are receiving any kind welfare assistance in

the form of transfers (Zakat or JKM).

• That is why we are interested in studying the urban poverty, specifically Kuala Lumpur the center of the wider Klang Valley metropolitan.

Poverty and welfare transfer

• Antipoverty programs increase parent’s self-sufficiency, improve children wellbeing, increase family resources.

• Transition from welfare to work: benefits children, positive role model, parent self-esteem, sense of control, higher earning.

• Malaysia is one of the countries that has been very reliant on government transfers. • Aside from subsidies, welfare transfer is one of the common practice of governments transfer

were channeled through the JKM under the KPWKM. • There are thirteen different cash transfer programs aiming for the welfare of people from

different groups and needs which were either monthly transfer or a one-time only transfer. • According to JKM’s annual statistical report in 2016, the number of cases of cash transfer

recipients increased 2.4 times over the period of 2007 to 2015 (JKM Annual Report, 2016).

• This shows that there is an increasing reliance of welfare transfer by the people, which would undoubtedly encourage the deepening of welfare dependency.


• Studies on the impact of income on children’s education attainment found a positive association between parental income and children educational outcomes (Duncan et. al., 2011; Lacour & Tissington, 2011), even after controlling for parental education and occupational types (Hill & Duncan, 1987).

• The effect of income on children education achievement is more predominant for cognitive skills than for behavior and health (Duncan & Brooks-Gunn, 1997).

• Changes in the income among the lower distribution is also found to have a stronger impact on children educational outcomes compared with families in the higher income group (Dearing et. al., 2006). • This is because small changes in income in the lower end represents larger

proportion of change which may substantially reduce deprivation (Duncan et al., 2011).


• The effect of poverty is stronger in the early childhood than adolescent (Duncan & Brooks-Gunn, 1997).

• Family economic condition is strongly associated with children school completion, and the impact is more prevalent among children below the age five compared to children between the ages of 6 - 15 years old (Duncan et. al., 1998).

• Heckman’s conjecture: early family environment strongly affects productivity of later inputs such as schooling, earning, and occupation (Heckman, 2006).


• Family resources play an important role in determining the achievement of students:• Financial capital (Hill & Duncan, 1987; Duncan et. al., 2011; Lacour &

Tissington, 2011; Dearing at. al., 2006).

• Human capital i.e. parent education (Peters & Mullis, 1997), mother’s occupation (Hill & Duncan, 1987).

• Social capital i.e. parental involvement (Pavalache-Ilie & Tirdia, 2015; Ubale et al., 2016; Park, Stone & Holloway, 2017).

Literature

• Welfare dependency may have negative intergenerational effects (Fallesen & Bernardi, 2018):• increasing welfare take up in the second generation• but the effects appear smaller and qualitatively different from the negative effects caused by

poverty.

• Adolescents in welfare-reliant families experience more disruptions in their schooling (Bubonya & Clark, 2021):• e.g., school changes and residential mobility, expulsions and suspensions• receive less financial support from their families both of which impact on their chances of

completing high school and avoiding the welfare roll.

• Parental benefit receipt lowers the child's educational attainment (Boschman et al, 2019):• subsequently results in more benefit receipt• the remaining effect is more likely related to beliefs and norms than to information provision.

Negative impact of welfare

• Malaysia lacks the precedent for studies on the effect of welfare on children’s education which makes it an even more important subject to pursue.

• Welfare receipt produces temporary relief, however, it is also found to have a negative impact:• in the long run children from welfare families have a higher tendency to

continuously be welfare dependent (Hill & Duncan, 1987). • negative role-model by parents (Mead, 1992; Mead, 1997)• welfare stigma on self-esteem (Rain- water 1982; Goodban 1985; Nichols-

Casebolt 1986)• stigma by peers and teachers (Rainwater 1982; Popkin 1990; Edin et al. 1999;

Seccombe 1999)

Lesson from the US study

• It is important to note that almost all these studies were based on the sample in the United States, and the samples are usually very specific in demography. • A closer look tells us that the negative effects of welfare on child’s education attainment is

more consistent among white children. • As for African American children, the results were less significant, mixed and even show

indication of positive effect of welfare (Ku, 2001; Boggess, 1998; McLanahan, 1985). • A lot of them are also focused on a single-parent household where the mothers are the head

of the households, because a single-parent household held the biggest portion of those who receipt welfare assistance in the United States.

• As there has yet been any studies relating to impact of welfare receipt towards children’s development in Malaysia, it is time we start to expand the knowledge in this so that we know where we stand in the effectiveness of our welfare system in supporting the growth of those in the lower social class, particularly the children.

Confounding factors

1. Parent education has a strong positive impact on their children’s education outcome, and mother’s education was found to have a larger impact (Peters & Mullis, 1997)a) Student lowers academic ambition because they don’t see it as valuable, ambition

affects efforts, performance decrease as well.b) parents with higher level of education also have open and emotional stable

children (Sutin et. al., 2017).c) families with reading materials available at home improves schooling (Peters &

Mullis, 1997).

2. Mother’s occupationa) family with working mothers is different from family with staying at home

mothers. b) while working mothers increase their daughter’s labor market participation, but

less time spent for families may lead to less schooling for her children (Hill & Duncan, 1987).

Confounding factors

3. Father’s unemployment: a) Mechanism = financial strains, changing parenting practices, and children’s

perception to parent as role model.

4. Psychology: a) low income may influence parent’s emotional stability that may leads to stress,

dysphoria, marital conflict, spousal irritability, and greater hostility towards children (Conger et. al., 1994).

5. Family size: a) data from MFLS-2 shows that children from single-motherhood families were

found to be more likely to have lower income and lower occupation later in life (Pong, 1996).

b) children with a greater number of siblings had poorer secondary school attainments due to the sharing of economic resources within family.

Standardized tests

• Major test (public school):• UPSR

• PT3

• O Level

• Other types of schools:• Private (Islamic religious school’s

STAM, Chinese independent high school’s UEC, international school).

Primary

• Free, compulsory

Lower secondary

• Free, optional but widely used

Academic OR vocational

• O Level

• Vocational certificate

Research Methodology

Fieldwork• Questionnaire design, obtained ethic clearance and approval from Ministry

of Education. Also from District Education Office, and school administrations.

• Take home self-administered survey questions filled by Form 4 students with instructions given prior. • Gifts to increase participations.

• Data were entered by three Research Assistants.• Information on (n=566, p=122):

• parent education, income, occupation, salary, welfare recipient (source & amount), residence, sib size.

• Student’s info: education, exam scores, school, streams.• Support system: book, gadget, facilities at home, tuition.• Parent’s involvement, sports, teacher’s involvement, home environment, stress,

drug/smoke/bully.

Fieldwork• Target group are those who receives welfare assistance then they are likely

within the B40 in Kuala Lumpur. • Thus, we narrowed down to working with samples from the government’s program

for low-cost apartment, Projek Perumahan Rakyat, PPR.

• The sample target was narrowed down to only form 4 students as Ministry of Education Malaysia, MoE, does not allow conducting survey on from 3 and form 5 students.

• In order to conduct survey in schools, there is a three-step process. • Seek approval from MoE, where the project’s research proposal, research

instruments along with the complete list of intended schools to be surveyed were provided to and reviewed by them.

• Seek approval from the state office for education (JPWPKL in KL). • Seek approval from the principals of each school. Despite the approval from MoE

and JPWPKL, the school principal is not obligated to allow the survey to happen and the decision is at their complete discretion.

Fieldwork• The schools that were selected for the survey were all schools that are with

5km radius from a PPR. • The reason for this is to ensure that the sample include as many PPR students as we

can.

• The first part is meeting the students and distributing the questionnaires to the students along with a short briefing on the study and how they are able to help by participating in the study.

• The second was to collect back questionnaires that were submitted by students after they have received consent from their parents and after the parents’ part of the questionnaire was filled in. • This is was done with the help of the teachers in each school.

• The token of appreciation was also distributed by to the students by the teachers.

School list

• SMK LEMBAH SUBANG

• SMK SEKSYEN 10 KOTA DAMANSARA

• SMK (P) SERI PANTAI

• SMK BANDAR TUN RAZAK

• SMK COCHRANE

• SMK DESA PETALING

• SMK PETALING

• SMK SERI BINTANG SELATAN

• SMK SERI SENTOSA

• SMK SETAPAK

INDAH

• SMK TINGGI SETAPAK

• SMK BATU MUDA

• SMK DATO' IBRAHIM YAACOB

• SMK JINJANG

• SMK ST. MARY (M)

• SMK TAMAN EHSAN


• SMK DANAU KOTA


• SMK DHARMA

• SMK KEPONG BARU

• SMK MIHARJA


• SMK RAJA ALI



• SMK TAMAN DESA






• SMK DANAU KOTA


• SMK DHARMA

• SMK KEPONG BARU

• SMK MIHARJA


• SMK RAJA ALI



• SMK TAMAN DESA







momhe 433 2.13 0.57 1 4

dadhe 404 2.16 0.57 1 5

gurhe 19 2.32 0.67 1 4

dadjobhr 420 2.83 1.33 1 4

dadincome 566 2533.01 2495.07 0 15000

momjobhr 262 11.65 141.92 1 2300

momincome 566 1473.95 2241.86 0 16000

inadequate 506 1.70 0.46 1 2

wsource 566 0.26 0.44 0 1

welfarelen~h 144 2.59 0.95 1 5

welfareamo~2 129 1.29 0.55 1 3

sex 565 0.39 0.49 0 1

yob 549 2002.97 0.29 2002 2008

sibno 560 2.52 1.53 1 10

sibsize 554 3.74 1.64 1 11

together2 563 1.46 1.18 1 6

race 565 1.34 0.61 1 4

welfarefmly 531 2.01 0.65 1 3

stream 537 2.42 1.41 1 5

f3schooltype 556 1.12 1.59 1 30



f3students 449 28.32 5.89 1 40

f3scholar 495 1.89 0.31 1 3

j1 488 4.72 1.34 1 6

j2 491 4.25 1.44 1 6

j3 484 3.68 1.57 1 6

j4 485 3.36 1.49 1 6

j5 503 2.60 1.68 1 6

j6 493 2.81 1.32 1 6

k1 513 5.30 1.09 1 6

k2 514 5.27 1.05 1 6

k3 512 4.49 1.03 1 6

k4 518 4.77 1.22 1 6

k5 514 4.65 1.07 1 6

absent2 341 4.59 10.33 0 96

classno 476 3.60 2.29 1 14

classtotal 489 8.08 3.11 1 42

counselling 553 1.05 0.40 1 9

counsel 548 1.73 0.44 1 2

PT3 scores

Mother’s education

Father’s education

Modelling

Decision Tree

• Tree-based methods for regression, segmenting the predictor space into a number of simple regions.

• We divide the predictor space—that is, the set of possible values for X1, X2,..., Xp — into J distinct and non-overlapping regions, R1, R2,...,RJ.

• For every observation that falls into the region Rj, we make the same prediction, which is simply the mean of the response values for the training observations in Rj.

• The goal is to find boxes R 1 ,...,R J that minimize the RSS, given by

DT algorithm

• Top-down and greedy approach that is known as recursive binary splitting:• top-down: splitting begins at the top of the three

• greedy: best split is made at that particular step

• Consider all predictors X1,..., Xp, and all possible values of the cutpoints for each of the predictors, and then choose the predictor and cutpoint such that the resulting tree has the lowest RSS.

• R1(j,s) = {X|Xj < s} and R2(j,s) = {X|Xj ≥ s}

• We seek the value of j and s that minimize the equation

Boosting DT

• DT is suitable for non-linear and complex relationship between features and the response.

• More powerful model can be constructed using bagging, random forest, and boosting.

• Creating multiple copies of the original dataset by growing trees sequentially using information from previously grown trees.

• Combine all trees to create a single predictive model.

Results of recursive binary splitting

• Sibsize has the highest variable importance measure. Sibsize < 2.5 has higher scores.

• Mixed results for momincomeand dadincome.

• Fitting one regression tree may lead to overfitting, so we apply boosting.

Variable importance

var rel.inf

dadincome 32.271105

sibsize 22.393252

momincome 15.761853

dadhe 8.410623

momhe 6.603165

malay 5.230048

sex 4.661442

wsource 2.961999

ppr 1.706513

Association rule mining

• Discover association between itemsets that occur together frequently.

• Let K be a formal context with minsupp (min support) and minconf (min confidence) ∈ [0,1].

• The association rule mining problem consists now of:• determining all pairs A → B of subsets of M whose support supp(A → B) :=

supp(A ∪ B) is above the threshold minsupp

• confidence conf(A → B) :=supp(A∪B)/supp(A) is above the threshold minconf

Association rule mining results

• Items most related to above median score:• Parent involve in homework

• Low absent

• Happy to go to school

• No peer conflict

• Encouragement to continue higher education

• No health problem

• Study group

• No family financial problem

• Items most related to below median score:• Absenteeism

• Not comfortable at home

• Parents don’t encourage to continue higher education

• No parent’s involvement in homework

• No aspiration to continue higher education

The welfare effect on exam scores

var rel.inf

faminc 33.0852298

sibsize 31.5075953

wsource 9.4471928

sex 8.8299787

malay 8.1723807

ppr 4.1683409

momhe 3.8276407

dadhe 0.9616412

Marginal effects

faminc sibsize

Marginal effects

welfare ppr residential

Marginal effects

momhe dadhe

Model performance

Conclusion

Investing in disadvantaged children

• Public policy that promotes fairness and social justice also promotes productivity in economy a society.

• Early intervention have higher returns than later intervention e.g. public job training, police expenditure, convict rehab (Heckman, 2006).

Summary

• The welfare effect: positive among urban poor in our sample.

• Increases in parental income are associated with increased test scores.

• Parent's education has a strong association with children’s attainment.

• Sibling size has a negative impact especially when they are larger than five.

In general, changes in parental income have a significant impact of children educational outcomes, and the marginal effects of welfare status is positive among urban poor (income < RM2,208).

More delicate studies need to be done on the net use of welfare resources for education among those who are in vulnerable situations.

Constraints and suggestions for future research• Prolonged dependency on welfare assistance creates a welfare dependency

culture in which children follows their parent behavior towards welfare expectancy. • Children who were raised in welfare recipient families were more likely to be

continuously dependent on the welfare system (Hill & Duncan, 1987).

• This paper uses PT3 scores as proxy for future academic and labor market success, but future studies should also include other dimensions e.g. school completion, higher education participation, etc.

• Map data from e-Kasih, tax records, educational establishments annual reports.

• Data on the timing of poverty, parent health status, school characteristics, cognitive/noncognitive stimulation at age 3, and family conflicts.

Thank you

This work was supported by



RA: Izzati Afiqah Ab Razak

Documents

Parental Welfare Status and Children’s Educational