Determinants of Child Labour and Schooling: Implications for Poverty and Social Inequality Reduction among Rural Households of Ogun State, Nigeria

Abstract

Social inequality has remained an adamant obstacle to economic development in Africa and indeed Nigeria. The decision to send a child to work or school reinforces the human capital accumulation or the prevalence of poverty and social inequality. The study analysed pertinent variables in the tradeoff between child labour and schooling in rural households of Ogun State, Nigeria. Multistage sampling was used in the selection of rural households and ex-post facto approach was adopted in interviewing 493 household children; 240 girls and 253 boys. In order to explicitly estimate the interdependency between child labour and schooling, a bivariate probit regression was modeled. Simple percentages and means were used to describe boys and girls socio-demographic characteristics. Findings revealed that female children had a higher likelihood to work than attend school. The proportion of girls not enrolled in school (16.7%) was almost twice larger than that of the boys (8.7%). Girls were observed to have higher school drop-out rate (18.3%) than boys (16.6%). The rate of out-of-school for both boys and girls was at 30 percent. The proportion of male children who attended school exclusively was higher than females. More girls participated in work only while a higher proportion of boys combined work with schooling. It was observed that the propensity to participate in child labour increased with child‟s age while the years of education of the child decreased the probability of labour participation and increased the likelihood of schooling. Household poverty significantly increased the probability of child labour and decreased the likelihood of schooling. Children from male headed households and farm households were found to participate more in labour activities and less in schooling than their other counterparts. Furthermore, presence of secondary school and electricity increased school attendance and decreased labour participation while presence of public potable water source was found to increase the probability of child labour but does not significantly impact on school attendance. The study concluded that reducing child labour will increase schooling options. However, decreasing child labour is possible through decreasing household poverty and gender disparity and providing physical infrastructure which will in turn decrease poverty and social inequality among the rural households and foster development.

Keywords: Child labour, child schooling, poverty, gender disparity, bivariate probit