Inequality in Childcare, case study: Palestine, Tunisia, Algeria

Abstract

Although parents’ awareness regarding the devastating consequences of child neglect during the recent years has been increased, and its’ rate is still high. According to the Children’s Bureau, Child Maltreatment report in 2015 related to the United States, 75.3 percent of children who are victims of maltreatment were neglected 1 . Additionally, child neglect was the only reason or at least 73% of the child death reason in 2015, in the USA (United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), The Administration for Children & Families (ACF), Children's Bureau (CB), 2017c). In Canada Troeme and Wolfe, (2001) report that 19% of examined children experienced physical neglect, 12% involved in abandonment, 11% reports educational neglect, and 48% of them were harmed due to lack of parents’ supervision. Child neglect primarily arose as a social issue in the developed countries of the Western World. But as time goes by, people more and more realize that it is almost everywhere in the developing and developed countries, the East and the West. In Palestine, based on the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) household survey in 2014, approximately 12% of children aged 0-59 months are left under the care of other children, while 4% of the same age ranges are left alone during the last week. Combining the two groups (left alone with the supervision of other child less than 10 years old and left alone without any supervision) shows that a total of 14% of children are not adequately cared in Palestine during the past week. Children with age of 48- 59 months (17%) are more in risk of inadequate care than children 36-47 months (9%). Algeria and Tunisia are also two countries that show the relatively high rate of child neglect related to the child less than 5 years old. In 2012 and 2013, MICS data sets show 5.5% of children in Algeria were left alone during last week. In Tunisia, United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) household surveys reports 13.2% of children experienced inadequate supervision care (Klevens and Ports ,2017). It is widely documented that child neglect has devastating consequences for child growth, which has different socioeconomic aspects. Metzler et al ,2017 in their report related to ten stats in Colombia show that child abuse and neglect’s consequences would harm a person’s life forever as well as his or her next generations also. According to MacMillan (2000), the effects of child supervision neglect on child development are pervasive, impair numerous domains of development, and have serious long-term consequences. Additionally, many studies have found a relationship between the history of abuse and the existence of adolescent violence. (Bernard and Bernard, 1983; Wolfe et al., 2001). Women also show an increased likelihood of involvement in abuse and an increased risk of being abused when they were abused and neglected as a child (Wolfe et al., 2001). Mothers with early neglect experiences are likely to repeat the way they are maladaptive to their children (Main & Goldwyn, 1984). This repetitive pattern may lead to neglect of intergenerational transmission by parents. There are more sever consequences of childcare neglecting, which we can point as adult mortality. Decades of research have found a strong relationship between child abuse and neglect and other forms of Adverse Childhood Experience (ACEs), which leads to the adult morbidity and mortality (Felitti et al., 1998; Gilbert et al., 2010). The current paper shows inequality in childcare across three selected countries (Algeria, Tunisia, and Palestine), considering three demographical effects, child gender, child residential area, and mother’s education.