Child labor and school attendance

A previous article on child labor on this site presented a definition of child labor that considers both economic activity and household chores. The inclusion of household chores leads to a more precise measure of the burden of work on children. In particular, this new child labor indicator is less biased against girls, who typically spend more time on household chores and less time on economic activity than boys.

In the graph below, the proposed child labor indicator is used to evaluate the trade-off between child labor and school attendance among children aged 7 to 14 years in 35 developing countries. This age group was selected because in all 35 countries children are expected to enter primary school by age 7. The underlying data were collected with 26 Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) and 9 Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) between 1999 and 2005. 34 of the surveys are nationally representative and one, Palestinians in Syria, is a subnational sample. Surveys conducted during school vacation were excluded from the analysis. The results therefore show the trade-off between child labor and school attendance during a time of the year when children are supposed to be in school.

School attendance refers to attendance of any type of school and not only schools that are part of the formal system of education. In addition, children of secondary school age who are still in primary school are also counted as attending school for the purpose of the present analysis. In contrast, such overage children are counted as out of school when indicators like the secondary school net attendance rate (NAR) are calculated. In a further simplification, child labor is defined for all ages as at least one hour of economic activity or 28 or more hours of household chores per week.

Child labor and school attendance, children 7-14 years

Data source: Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS), 1999-2005.

The scatter plot above demonstrates the trade-off between child labor and school attendance. Countries with low child labor rates typically have high school attendance rates and vice versa. A linear regression shows that a 10 point increase in child labor is associated with a 7.6 point decrease in school attendance at the national level.

On average across the 35 countries in the sample, 77 percent of 7- to 14-year-olds attended school at the time of they survey. In ten countries, at least 90 percent of children were in school. In seven countries - Central African Republic, Chad, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Sierra Leone, and Somalia - less than half of all children went to school. Somalia has by far the lowest attendance rate with 19 percent.

25 percent of all children between 7 and 14 years were engaged in child labor, ranging from 4 percent among Palestinians in Syria to 78 percent in Niger and Sierra Leone. In six countries, more than half of all children in this age group were child laborers: Central African Republic, Chad, Guinea-Bissau, Niger, Sierra Leone, and Uganda.

Related articles

• Child labor: economic activity and household chores
• Child labor and school attendance in Bolivia
• Child labor and school attendance in Bolivia, part 2

External links

• Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS)
• Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS)

Friedrich Huebler, 5 October 2008, Creative Commons License
Permanent URL: http://huebler.blogspot.com/2008/10/child-labor.html

Child labor: economic activity and household chores

Child labor is one of the obstacles on the way to the Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education by 2015. In a report on global child labor trends, the International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that there are 218 million child laborers worldwide. 126 million of these children are estimated to be engaged in hazardous work (ILO 2006). The concept of child labor used by the ILO is derived from two conventions: ILO Convention 138, which sets 15 years as the general minimum age for employment, and ILO Convention 182 on the worst forms of child labor. Any work in violation of Conventions 138 and 182 is considered illegal child labor that should be eliminated.

One limitation of statistics like those published by the ILO is that they only refer to economic activity, that is work related to the production of goods and services, as defined in the United Nations System of National Accounts (UNSD 2001). This definition excludes chores undertaken in a person's own household like cooking, cleaning or caring for children.

Statistics of child labor that ignore household chores are problematic because they underestimate the burden of work on children, especially for girls. To examine the relative burden of economic activities and household chores carried out by children, data from 35 household surveys were analyzed for this article. Grouped by Millennium Development Region, these surveys are:

• Developed countries: Albania.
• Eastern Asia: Mongolia.
• South-eastern Asia: Lao PDR, Philippines.
• Southern Asia: India.
• Western Asia: Bahrain, Lebanon, Palestinians in Syria.
• Sub-Saharan Africa: Angola, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda.
• Latin America and the Caribbean: Bolivia, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Trinidad and Tobago.

The surveys were conducted between 1999 and 2005. 26 of the surveys were Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) and 9 were Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS). All 35 surveys collected data on work by children in the week preceding the survey. Surveys conducted during school vacation were excluded because the focus of the present analysis is work by children that should have been in school at the time of the survey.

The share of children aged 7 to 14 years in economic activity and household chores is depicted in the following graph. The graph also displays the number of hours spent per week on both types of work. All numbers are averages across the 35 surveys, weighted by each country's population between 7 and 14 years.

Economic activity and household chores, children 7-14 years

Data source: 35 DHS and MICS surveys, 1999-2005.

The results confirm that boys are more likely to be engaged in economic activity while girls are more likely to do household chores. On average across the 35 surveys, 22 percent of all boys and 19 percent of all girls between 7 and 14 years are engaged in economic activity. Boys also spend more hours on economic activity than girls, 20 compared to 19 hours. By comparison, girls are much more likely than boys to do household chores. 70 percent of all girls and 47 percent of all boys did household chores in the week preceding the survey. On average, girls spent 13 hours and boys 10 hours per week on household chores.

What are the implications of these findings for statistics of child labor, as currently defined by the ILO? Take the case of two families that need additional income to provide food for everyone in the household. In the first family, a 10-year-old boy is withdrawn from school and put to work on a farm. Because such work is considered economic activity the number of child laborers goes up. In the second family, the mother decides to start working on a farm and her 10-year-old daughter is asked to stay at home to care for her younger siblings. Because the girl is engaged in household chores the number of child laborers does not change. The consequences are the same for both children: they no longer go to school and miss out on the benefits from education.

To address the limitations of the ILO's definition of child labor, UNICEF has developed an expanded definition that covers household chores in addition to economic activity. This revised indicator is the basis for the child labor estimates that are reported in publications like Progress for Children (UNICEF 2007a) or The State of the World’s Children (UNICEF 2007b). For children 5 to 17 years of age, UNICEF defines child labor as follows:

• 5 to 11 years: any economic activity, or 28 hours or more household chores per week;
• 12 to 14 years: any economic activity (except light work for less than 14 hours per week), or 28 hours or more household chores per week;
• 15 to 17 years: any hazardous work, including any work for 43 hours or more per week.

The goal of UNICEF's child labor indicator is the measurement of work that should be eliminated because it violates international child labor conventions and interferes with school attendance. The threshold for household chores is set relatively high because it is assumed that household chores are less harmful than economic activity. Moreover, the high threshold of 28 hours household chores per week avoids a possible overestimation of the number of child laborers.

References

• International Labour Organization (ILO). 2006. Global child labour trends 2000-2004. Geneva: ILO. (Download PDF, 640 KB)
• United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). 2007a. Progress for children: A World Fit for Children statistical review. New York: UNICEF. (Download PDF, 3.6 MB)
• United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). 2007b. The state of the world's children 2008: Child survival. New York: UNICEF. (Download PDF, 4.3 MB)
• United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD). 2001. System of national accounts 1993. http://unstats.un.org/unsd/sna1993/toctop.asp.

Related articles

• Child labor and school attendance
• Child labor and school attendance in Bolivia
• Child labor and school attendance in Bolivia, part 2

External links

• International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC)
• ILO Convention 138
• ILO Convention 182
• Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS)
• Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS)

Friedrich Huebler, 7 September 2008 (edited 5 October 2008), Creative Commons License
Permanent URL: http://huebler.blogspot.com/2008/09/child-labor.html

Child labor and school attendance in Bolivia, part 2

Child labor interferes with school attendance and is therefore an obstacle to the Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education. In Bolivia, 90 percent of all children between 5 and 14 years of age attend school. At the same time, one third of all children in this age group are engaged in child labor, as shown in a previous post on child labor and school attendance in Bolivia.

For the purpose of this analysis, child labor is defined as any economic activity during the week of the survey, or more than two hours of household chores per day. The data for Bolivia were collected in a Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) in 2000. The previous post presented the data on child labor and schooling disaggregated by age group, sex, area of residence, and household wealth. Today's article will take a closer look at the pattern of work and school attendance by age.

The graph belows present the share of children aged 5 to 14 years who attend school or are engaged in child labor. School attendance is defined as attending any level of education at the time of the MICS survey. Each point represents children of a single age, from 5 years, 6 years, and so on, to 14 years of age. Child labor rates are plotted against the horizontal axis, school attendance rates against the vertical axis.

Child labor and school attendance by age, children 5-14 years, Bolivia

Data source: Bolivia 2000 MICS.

The upper left quadrant shows the values for all children combined. The inverted U shape indicates that children work steadily more as they grow older, while school attendance rates reach a peak near 100 percent for children between 7 and 11 years of age and then decrease again. The upper right quadrant, with data disaggregated by gender, makes clear that there is no difference between boys and girls in Bolivia, as far as work and school are concerned.

There are, however, big differences between children from urban and rural areas, as the lower left quadrant shows. Among urban children, school attendance rates rise rapidly with age and at 7 years, 99 percent of all children are in school. Few children drop out as they grow older and among 14-year-olds, the school attendance rate is still 95 percent. In rural areas, school attendance rates for children between 7 and 11 years of age are also above 90 percent.

Compared to urban children, rural children are much more likely to be engaged in child labor. The highest child labor rate in urban areas is observed for children 14 years old (36 percent). In contrast, one third of all 6-year-olds (32 percent) and half of all 7-year-olds (50 percent) do child labor. Child labor rates continue to increase with age and at 14 years, 78 percent of all rural children work, compared to 70 percent in this age group who attend school.

The last graph, in the lower right quadrant, compares children from the richest and poorest 20 percent of all households. The overall pattern is very similar to that for urban and rural children. Children from wealthy households are much more likely to attend school and less likely to work than children from poor households. In the richest household quintile, school attendance rates are between 99 and 100 percent for all children aged 7 to 14 years, while child labor rates do not exceed 32 percent. In the poorest household quintile, the child labor rate reaches 86 percent among 14-year-old children. 66 percent of 14-year-olds from the poorest household are in school.

A comparison of the individual graphs makes clear that the overall pattern of child labor and school attendance in Nepal is strongly influenced by children from poor, rural households. Many of these children work and do not complete their education.

Related articles

• Child labor and school attendance in Bolivia
• Child labor and school attendance
• Child labor: economic activity and household chores
• Primary school attendance in Bolivia
• Secondary school attendance in Bolivia
  
• Education data from household surveys
• UNICEF priority countries for girls' education
• Household wealth and years of education

Friedrich Huebler, 31 July 2006 (edited 5 October 2008), Creative Commons License
Permanent URL: http://huebler.blogspot.com/2006/07/child-labor-and-school-attendance-in.html

Child labor and school attendance in Bolivia

Previous posts presented data on primary and secondary school attendance in Bolivia, one of UNICEF's 25 priority countries for girls' education. With a primary school net attendance rate of 76.4 percent, Bolivia is not close to the Millennium Development Goal of a full course of primary schooling for all children by 2015. There are several obstacles on the way to universal primary education and one of these obstacles is child labor.

Child labor can harm a child's health and, even if not harmful, it can interfere with school attendance. The latest data on school attendance for Bolivia comes from a Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) conducted in 2003/04. The DHS did not collect data on work by children but such data is available from a Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) that was carried out in 2000.

The graph and table below present the share of children aged 5 to 14 years who attend school or are engaged in child labor. School attendance is defined as attending any level of education at the time of the MICS survey, from preschool over primary to secondary school. Child labor is defined as any economic work during the week of the survey, or more than two hours of domestic work per day. Economic work includes paid or unpaid work for someone who is not a member of the household, and paid or unpaid work for a family farm or business. Domestic work covers activities like cleaning, cooking, shopping, or caring for other children.

School attendance and child labor, children 5-14 years, Bolivia

Data source: Bolivia 2000 MICS.

In total, 89.5 percent of all children between 5 and 14 years are in school and 33.5 percent are engaged in child labor. Older children are more likely to go to school or work than younger children. There is no difference between boys' and girls' school attendance rates but slightly more girls are engaged in child labor. There are clear differences between children from urban and rural areas, especially with regard to child labor. 92.8 percent of all urban children go to school and only 16.6 percent are in child labor. In rural areas, 84.6 percent are in school and more than half of all children, 58.3 percent, are child laborers.

There is also a clear association between household wealth and school or work. Of all groups, children from the poorest 20 percent of all households have the lowest school attendance and highest child labor rates: 82.0 percent are in school and 62.3 percent at work. In contrast, children from the richest 20 percent of all households are most likely to be in school and least likely to work: 96.1 percent of these children attend school and only 14.1 are engaged in child labor. School attendance rates increase steadily with household wealth, while child labor rates decrease.

School attendance and child labor, children 5-14 years, Bolivia 2000

	School attendance (%)	Child labor (%)
5-9 years	86.1	22.7
10-14 years	93.3	45.7
Male	89.4	32.8
Female	89.5	34.2
Urban	92.8	16.6
Rural	84.6	58.3
Poorest household quintile	82.0	62.3
Second household quintile	87.5	35.6
Middle household quintile	91.4	26.1
Fourth household quintile	93.9	17.7
Richest household quintile	96.1	14.1
Total	89.5	33.5

Data source: Bolivia 2000 MICS.

Related articles

• Child labor and school attendance in Bolivia, part 2
• Child labor and school attendance
• Child labor: economic activity and household chores
• Primary school attendance in Bolivia
• Secondary school attendance in Bolivia
  
• Education data from household surveys
• UNICEF priority countries for girls' education
• Household wealth and years of education

Friedrich Huebler, 29 June 2006 (edited 5 October 2008), Creative Commons License
Permanent URL: http://huebler.blogspot.com/2006/06/child-labor-and-school-attendance-in.html