Modelling the causes and effects of single parenthood on academic performance of students in southwestern part of Nigeria

This paper examines modelling the causes and effect of single parenthood on academic performance of students in southwestern part of Nigeria. Questionnaire was administered to 500 respondents in both university and polytechnic in three states of southwestern part of Nigeria for data collection. Four potential causes (poverty, death of spouse, marital violence (divorce and separation), and extra marital pregnancy) and effects (low commitment, lack of attention for children, poor financial strength and low impact on the wellbeing of students) of single parenthood were considered for modelling. Challenges that single parenting students encountered on their academic performance were examined such as single parents do not have enough time to show commitment to their children’s school academic activities, students from single parents easily drop out from school, students from single parent perform less academically than students from both parents, coming from single parenting home psychologically may put challenges on academic performance of students and single parents lack financial strength in providing for their children’s academic activities. Students from single parent category have the highest percentage of respondents from Ekiti and Ondo state while students from both parent category have the highest percentage of respondent in Osun state. Multiple regression is used for the analysis to determine the causes and effects of single parenting on the academic performance of the students and conclusively the results shows that death and low impact on the wellbeing of the students are the primary cause and effect of single parent on academic performance of students in southwestern states in Nigeria.