Child fosterage among Zambian families

Abstract

African continent is characterized by a high prevalence of child fostering than that in the rest of the world. Very few studies have focused on the issue of social services for child fostering families in Zambia. The purpose of this article is to examine the characteristics of Zambian families that foster children and to identify the social services needs of the fostering families based on the empirical findings of this study. The data were collected from 156 households, and nearly one-third of our sample, 52 out of the 156, were fostering households. Results of this study suggest that child fostering in Zambia is not contributing to increases in the educational levels of fostered children. Child fostering appears to be an aspect of family-building strategies. There is a positive relationship between woman’s education and the likelihood of child fostering in Zambia.