Kinship systems and women’s power: a review of the literature and their effect on children outcomes in Malawi.

Abstract

Kinship systems are social organizations based on family ties defining the group of people to whom the individual is linked. Since these systems affect children's education, gender discrimination, and female power within the family, they become more remarkable in developing countries. This paper aims to describe the implication of women power on children education in a particular developing country (i.e. Malawi) in which kinship systems are strongly affecting the socio-economical life. It considers the effect of kinship systems (i.e., whether the family lives in matrilineal or patrilineal communities) first providing a detailed description of the kinship system's legal framework in Malawi and its connection to household decision making and then examining the main literature on the issue.

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KEYWORDS

Household decision making, children schooling, developing countries, kinship systems.