Intra-household Differences in Education and Home Leaving in Indonesia

Abstract

This paper investigates some of the underlying factors determining the probability of household division, defined here as the event when an adult leaves his or her original household, utilizing data from two waves of the IFLS (IFLS1-1993 and IFLS3-2000). Borrowing the empirical framework suggested by Foster and Rosenzweig (2002), I estimate the probability of household division by the subsequent waves of the survey, using household variables from an earlier wave as the explanatory variables. The findings suggest that education variables play an important albeit limited role in determining household division. There is evidence that higher education of the household head is associated with lower propensity of an adult household member to leave. On the other hand, higher maximum years of schooling of other members in the household are associated with higher probability of household division. These results, along with the finding showing that rural households are more likely to divide, indicate that household division in Indonesia may largely be associated with the mobility of young, more educated members from rural areas. While the empirical framework is based on a collective household model, the results can also be explained within the context of unitary household model. Show more