WHY DO DAUGHTERS LEAVE SCHOOL IN SOUTHERN AFRICA - FAMILY ECONOMY ANDMOTHERS COMMITMENTS

By focusing on the family economy and its capacity to mediate broad ec onomic developments, sociologists are beginning to move beneath macros tructural forces to better explain parental demand for schooling and c hildren's attainment. This materialist model focuses on the explanator y power of contextual labor demand and resources internal to the famil y. Parents' social preferences and commitments, antecedent to ''choosi ng'' between work or school for their children, are presumed to covary with economic factors. In contrast, research on family practices with in impoverished settings reveals that parents' social commitments link ed to child development or schooling can vary independently of the fam ily's economic circumstances. Applying these alternative theories to f amily behavior in southern African, we assess the relative influence o f mothers' economic demands and social commitments on their daughter's probability of staying in school. We find that the risk of daughters leaving school is more strongly influenced by mothers' social commitme nts than by household economics. Maternal influences do interact with selected family-economy indicators and are conditioned by the level of discretionary time afforded to daughters.