Parental Chronic Illness and Child Education: Evidence from Children in Indonesia

Using two waves (2007, 2014) of Indonesian Family Life Survey data, this paper investigates effects of parental chronic illness on educational attainment of children in Indonesia. Studies on this nonpecuniary cost of adult morbidity are rare in the literature despite its significance in future wellbeing of people in developing countries. This paper is distinguished from existing related studies in that it accounts for the duration of illness in the estimation of the effects. The results show that girls whose father suffers from chronic illness for a longer duration achieve significantly lower educational levels between 2007 and 2014, compared to children of their same age cohort with healthy parents. In contrast, boys are unaffected by the father’s duration of chronic illness. Furthermore, this paper finds no evidence that mother’s duration of chronic illness affects educational attainment of children in Indonesia.