The consequences of armed conflict on household composition

We evaluate the effect of large-scale violent conflict on the household composition of internally displaced persons using quantitative data from Colombia. We use a panel database of migrants constructed with the Sisben database (used to target social programmes in Colombia) for 2006–2009. We follow migrant mothers and children who belong to nuclear-biparental households before migration, and analyse the changes in the composition of their households after migration through multilevel multinomial logistic models. We do this separately for rural and urban migrants because they exhibit differences in household composition traditions and exposure to armed conflict. We find that urban and rural migrants have different migration strategies in both peaceful and armed conflict circumstances. We conclude that the household compositions of mothers and children are differently affected by violence, which might be caused by family separation; for example, rural children have a higher probability than mothers of belonging to households which are not nuclear biparental. We also find that exposure to violence can increase or decrease the effects of individual variables; for instance, in peaceful situations it is more likely that a household remains intact during migration when the number of children per adult increases; however, this effect is attenuated in violence situations.