The Effect of Father’s Absence on the Cognitive and Psychological Development of Children in Kyrgyzstan

Abstract

This paper analyzes how a father’s absence/involvement affects the early child development of children aged 36-59 months (3-4-year-old) using a pooled cross-sectional dataset composed of the “Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey” in Kyrgyzstan for 2014 and 2018. There are three hypotheses presented for testing: children with a father present in their daily life are better developed cognitively and psychologically than those in father- absent households; the absence of a father will have different effects on boys and girls; the absence of a father/his involvement has different effects based on the position of a child in a household. There are two main models employed in the paper: early childhood development as a binary index and as a multidimensional index (ranging from 0 to 10). The physical absence and involvement of a father are considered separately. The results partially prove that children with present and involved fathers are better developed. The second and third hypotheses were proved to be correct since the father’s presence significantly increased the developmental status of children of a household head and a higher fathers involvement ratio was of benefit for the developmental scores of boys.