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How the Early Childhood Well-Being Lies within the Family Context in Albania

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Abstract

Family and young children interaction constitutes an intricate piece of the reconstructed human behaviors and relations that dominate the current sociodemographic transition in Albania. We argue here that the recent macro demographic and social changes, which indicate an entry into the second demographic transition, are also articulated in the family micro-level relationships. In particular, our interest has led us to explore whether the divergences in family behaviour and attitudes concerning inequalities expressed in the wealth position and empowerment status of mothers have implications for the well-being of young children. Micro-level data from the 2008–2009 Albanian Demographic and Health Survey (ADHS) for children under five were used for this analysis. The sub-sample of 541 children from 3 to 5 years of age is examined related to achievements in several aspects of well-being. We put forward that the Albanian families who are still distant from the second demographic-transition model in terms of living arrangements pose a burden on the quality of life for the young children.

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Notes

  1. DHS introduces this measure that has been tested in a number of countries in valuing inequities related to household assets, use of health services, and health outcomes (Gwatkin et al. 2007).

  2. The normative framework of Amartya Sen argues about individual well-being from the perspective of its personal welfare and the possession of individual capabilities and freedoms (1999).

  3. The Demographic and Health Survey is a cross-sectional survey implemented in many countries worldwide, providing a wide range and amount of indicators in the areas of population, health and nutrition and education, including data on family and child development.

  4. The choice for a sub-sample of children aged 36 to 59 months is made because a number of indicators of interest for our analysis reports mainly for the age range of 36–59 months. For instance, preschool education is measured only for children 3–5 years old. Similarly, child discipline is measured for children over 2 years old. Moreover, for some other indicators there was a low variability for some age groups.

  5. SPSS 16 was used to conduct the descriptive analysis, reliability analysis, and multivariate analyis.

  6. The binary (dummy) variables from cross-sectional data are used to estimate differences between groups. The dummy variables prove useful in cross–sectional research.

  7. In our case, this is a discrete social phenomenon which takes only two categories: “1” = presence of well-being or “0” = absence of well-being.

  8. It should be noted that the definition and the way of constructing the exogenous variables X1, X2, X3 are the same as the ones used in the Albanian Demographic and Health Survey. The score test for the proportional odds assumption conducted before the estimation of the regression models, indicated as appropriate the categorisation in a dummy version of the raw indices X2, X3 (Agresti 2010).

  9. In more simple words, if the mother is tolerant toward violence, it means that she considers this phenomenon as normal and as consequence she has a low self esteem.

  10. The test statistics is \( {\chi}^2={\sum}_{i= l}^n{\sum}_{j= l}^m\frac{{\left({f}_{i j-}{p}_{i j}\right)}^2}{p_{i j}} \) where: n indicates the number of columns and m the number of rows of the contingency table; f ij are observed. Frequencies in the ij cell of the n x m contingency table, whereas p ij are expected frequencies in the ij cell if the null hypothesis of independence were true.

  11. As explained above, we have re-estimated the model using a lower threshold for early childhood well-being index of two to three dimensions (two from three identified capabilities).

  12. The Hosmer-Lemeshow test is used to find whether the deviance statistic −2 log is insignificant or not.

  13. A correlation analysis was also run to test for any possible problems with multi-collinearity among the exogenous variables and showed no problems because the three variables have correlation values below 0.4 for a p < 0.01.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Social Sciences, Tirana University, Blv. Gj. Fishta, Tirana, Albania

    Lantona Sado

  2. Italian National Institute of Statistics, V.le Oceano Pacifico 171, 00144, Rome, Italy

    Federico Benassi

  3. Faculty of Natural Sciences, Tirana University, Blv. Zogu I, Tirana, Albania

    Alma Spaho

Authors
  1. Lantona Sado
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  2. Federico Benassi
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  3. Alma Spaho
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Correspondence to Federico Benassi.

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Sado, L., Benassi, F. & Spaho, A. How the Early Childhood Well-Being Lies within the Family Context in Albania. Child Ind Res 11, 1301–1319 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-017-9476-5

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