Chapter 2

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

In this chapter shows a review of related literature about poverty and

social support and its effects to the academic performances of the respondents.

Related Literature

Poverty

Poverty and inequality in the Philippines remains a challenge. In the past

4 decades, the proportion of households living below the official poverty line

has declined slowly and unevenly. Economic growth has gone through boom

and bust cycles, and recent episodes of moderate economic expansion have

had limited impact on the poor. Great inequality across income brackets,

regions, and sectors, as well as unmanaged population growth, are considered

some of the key factors constraining poverty reduction efforts. (Asian

Development Bank, 2009).

On the other hand, poverty threshold is the minimum income required to

meet the basic food and non-food needs such as clothing, fuel, light and water,

housing, rental of occupied dwelling units, transportation and communication,

health and education expenses, non-durable furnishing, household operations

and personal care and effects. (PSA, 2019).

Poverty has proven to be one of the most significant challenges facing

this country and its citizens. Filipinos are having a hard time surviving in such
difficult conditions, and more and more are falling into extreme poverty.

According to the Asian Development Bank, the major causes of poverty include:

low economic growth, a weak agricultural sector, increased population rates

and a high volume of inequality. Because of these factors, there are a lot of

effects of poverty in the Philippines that make it difficult for people to live in

such circumstances. (Robison, 2018)

Illustrates the coping processes of Filipinos who have made it out of

poverty. Empirical studies discussed perceptions of the poor, homelessness

and subhuman living conditions, marginalisation from economic growth,

mental and physical health concerns due to socio-economic deprivation and

deficiencies in health care, family stressors, overseas working, increased

violence and social injustices to children, increasing numbers of street

children, and the cultural values in the Philippines (e.g., pagpupunyagi:

perseverance and resourcefulness, pakikipagkapwa: reliance on others). Based

on the study by Tuason (2008), the model of coping processes of those who

were born poor and became rich is illustrated. The model includes the domains

such as: the experience of deprivation; negative emotions of self-pity,

insecurity, envy and anger; intolerance for continued poverty; praying to God

for change; dreams for self and resourcefulness; education and drive; gratitude;

helping those in need; and lucky chance events. For those born poor, the

societal structures in the Philippines keep most everyone from being

economically successful. (Tuason, 2010).

What remains a contentious issue is whether the various dimensions of

individual deprivation should be aggregated--and how these are to be

aggregated--into a summary measure of poverty.This study employs the Alkire-

Foster aggregation methodology, which preserves the “dashboard” of

dimensions of poverty, to systematically assess the magnitude, intensity, and

sources of multidimensional poverty over the past two decades and across

subpopulation groups in the Philippines. It finds that what is generally known

about the country’s performance in poverty reduction in recent years, as seen

in income measures of poverty, is quite different from what the lens of

multidimensional poverty measures reveal. While income-based poverty

remained largely unaffected by economic growth during the past decade,

multidimensional poverty did actually decline. This finding is robust to sources

of nationally-representative household survey data and to assumptions about

the poverty cutoff. From a policy perspective, this result reinforces the view

that nothing less than economic growth, even in the short term, is required to

reduce poverty (broadly interpreted to include individual deprivations beyond

income). Moreover, the diversity of both deprivation intensity and magnitude of

poverty across geographic areas and sectors of the Philippine society is

enormous, suggesting that, beyond growth, much needs to be done to make

development more inclusive. (Balisacan, 2011) .

Poverty is primarily due to low earning capacity of the poor and to their

limited access to regular and productive jobs. Behind these are the two
interrelated root causes of in-work poverty—low education of the poor, and the

scarcity of productive job opportunities. The labor market is segmented into

“good” and “bad” jobs, with the poor working in the latter. They hold jobs that

are informal, temporary or casual, and low-paid. Widespread informality means

that the poor neither benefit from the minimum wage policy nor from

employment protection legislation. They do not benefit from wage growth

either, because their bargaining power is weak. “Good” jobs are so few,

especially in rural areas, that even better educated workers are often forced to

take unskilled jobs and work as low-paid laborers. The reduction of in-work

poverty hinges on removing constraints to gainful employment in both supply

side (better education and skills) and demand side (better jobs). It is critical

that the young poor have improved access to quality education, and be

equipped with skills required in the modern sector of the economy. But in

parallel, better jobs need to be created, which can be attained from the growth

of the formal and higher value added sector of the economy. The process of

structural transformation should be supported by effective labor policy. Labor

regulations need to be made simpler and more flexible to facilitate the

reallocation of labor from less to more productive activities, and from informal

to formal sector. Targeted training programs have the potential to address the

problem of low skills among the poor workers, especially the young ones. Such

programs should be developed on a pilot basis and expanded if proven to be

cost-effective. (Rutkowski, 2015).

The relationships between family and social support and early mother–

child bonds are explored in two different cultural contexts with ten at-risk

families with children under five years of age. Five families in the United States

attended a family center program; five families in Ireland utilized a home

visiting program. The experiences and perspectives of the ten participants

inform the study. The findings of this study are rooted in the unique cultural

contexts of the two family support programs and the ten participants’

individual meanings, experiences, and understandings. (Schwartz, 2007).

When children are removed from their parents due to child

maltreatment, the goal remains to reunite families whenever possible. Although

extensive research exists regarding barriers to reunification, little is known

about the families who are successfully reunited. The aim of this study was to

examine the strengths families found helpful in the process of achieving and

maintaining reunification. (Lietz, 2011).

Research shows that social support provides important benefits to our

physical and emotional health. Stress may be related to a number of health

concerns, from mental health problems to chronic health problems like heart

disease and migraines. However, social support can help protect people from

the harmful effects of stress. When dealing with a stressful situation, people

are less likely to report stress-related health problems when they feel like they

have support from others. (CMHA BC and Anxiety Canada, 2016).

embedded in its social sphere, translating its relational quality outside the

family. Being family-centred, child-centric, having close ties, and a large family

size (Medina, 2001; Miralao, 1994) are some basic elements of families in the

Philippines. Applying regression on the data from the World Values Survey for

the Philippines in 1996 and 2001, this study aims to explore the correlates of

views on family values among Filipinos, specifically those concerning the

traditional nuclear family set-up, the woman's roles within family, and the

reciprocal relationship of the parent and child. While the results show that

Filipinos generally share family values, especially on those related to child

rearing for both parents, and child-bearing, there are indications that such

views also differ across educa-tional attainment, geographic location, social

class, and ethnic groups. Disparities in views could be reflecting shifting family

values, which could then help explain current polarising policy debates on

issues on the reproductive health, divorce, and migration. (Morillo & Capuno,

2013).

The importance of social support in people’s lives and well-being is well

established. Furthermore, the research literature has presented social support

as a multidimensional concept. While there are several typologies of social

support in Western literature, there is, as yet, no Filipino typology. In this

study, a multidimensional framework of social support from the perspective of

Filipino adolescents was developed and validated. A mixed methods design and

confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) show that there are 11 types of social
support. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (Fernandez,

Ortega & Lirios, 2013).

Related Studies

This study examines the impact of educational support given by the

parents on the academic achievement and on the self concept of 4th grade

public school students. The aims of this study were (a) to examine the linkage

between academic achievement and educational support provided to the child

at home and, (b) to determine whether this support directly or indirectly effects

child's self concept. The data regarding parental support, its effects on the

academic achievement and the self concept were collected from a sample (N

=305) of 4th grade students in the urban primary and elementary public

schools. The sample students who have or have not parental support were

compared on two measures, (a) the annual school result report and, (b) the self

concept scale. The self concept was measured twice i.e. before one month of

annual school examination and after one month of announcement of annual

results. The findings study revealed that parents’ contribution to their

children's education has a consistent and positive effect on academic

achievement and on the self-concept. (Khan, 2010).

According to Okumu et al (2008), education is a fundamental human

right for economic growth and human development. Education is therefore

necessary for all societies to thrive in all aspects of growth. Education is

valuable because it contributes to national development through provision of

eliminating poverty, hunger disease and ignorance (Republic of Kenya 2005). A

lot more study done by Kapunga (1992) shows that education liberates society

from socio-political forces that affect and influence his personality at global

level. (Academic Paper, 2017).

A lot of studies show that there is a big effect of the nature of family

background on the academic performance of children in school. The family

back ground plays has a big on the academic performance of children at all

levels of education in the school system. It is generally accepted that the

quality of family interactions has important associations with the children’s

academic motivation and achievement. For instance Ryan (2000) shows that

there is a significant effect of family background variables, parent support and

teacher support on a child’s educational attainment. According to (Morgan et

al, 2009), stresses that children from low socio economic status households

and communities develop academic skills more slowly compared to their

counterparts from higher socio-economic status families. The low socio

economic status (economic struggling families) deprives children of what is

necessary to support their growth and welfare. Initial academic skills are

correlated with home environment where low literacy involvement and chronic

stress negatively affect a child’s academic performance. Parents from low socio

economic background are less likely to have the financial resources or time

availability to provide children with academic support.

education plays a crucial role in obtaining further educational opportunities.

Thus, it is necessary to examine how family background affects children’s

academic achievement at an early stage. Through analysis of data from the

Chinese Family Panel Study in 2010(CFPS2010), this paper proposes two

pathways through which family influences children’s academic performance.

Firstly, parents compete for high-quality educational opportunities for their

children and better educational opportunities lead to better academic

performance. Secondly, parenting behavior and educational support for their

children could cultivate children’s learning habits and affect academic

performance. We also find urban students’ academic performance are more

heavily affected by their families’ socioeconomic status compared with rural

students. These findings bear important implications for how to reduce the

class difference in students’ academic performance and promote educational

equity in contemporary China. (Zhonglu & LiZeqi Qiu, 2018).

For child proper emotional maturity, mother and father’s love and

affection are essential requirements for child’s emotional stability; children

have certain emotional needs that have to be catered for if they have to gain

emotional stability. It can be noted that children brought up in a home devoid

of love and care most times grow up with unwanted characters in the society.

This paper reviews the research literature on the effects of family relationship

on student academic performance with special reference to MFR (Mother-

Father Relationship). The study is a developmental study that takes into

status of a family as a block. The results first present how MFR variable

correlate with academic performance of students before tackling the general

constructs described in the literature. At the end of this review, the finding

results have been discussed in light of the different effects of mother-father

relationship on child academic performance. (Maina, 2018).

Education is a crucial factor in the growth and development of one’s

country. It plays a vital role in the development of human capital and is linked

with an individual’s well-being and opportunities for better living (Battle and

Lewis, 2002). It ensures the acquisition of knowledge and skills that enable

individuals to increase their productivity and improve their quality of life. This

increase in productivity also leads towards new sources of earning which

enhances the economic growth of a country (Saxton, 2000). Economy growth

depends always on the kind of education every citizen gains. This task lies in

the nation’s educational system, which tries its best to provide the education

needed by the majority of citizens. (Cruz & Nuqui, 2015).

Researchers have long noted that parental involvement can substantially

influence children's academic performance. There is a paucity of research

which has focused on this relationship in developing nations. Using data from

two surveys of parents, one sample from the Philippines, and one sample from

the United States, this study examines the nature of parental involvement, and

how it affects the school success of elementary students. Among American

parents, direct involvement (e.g., helping with homework) yields positive

forms of involvement (e.g., volunteering at their children's schools) are

associated with higher grade performance. Overall, Filipino parents are shown

to be more active in their children's school activities. The influence of parental

involvement upon children's performance in school is shown to vary

substantially between the two countries, depending upon the type of parental

involvement and household characteristics. Household income, in particular,

yields distinctly different effects upon Filipino and U.S. children's grade

performance. The results are discussed within a social capital paradigm. (Blair,

2014).