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Is child labour in rural economies caused by poverty?

Whilst it is children working in carpet, clothing and sports equipment industries that grab the headlines, the majority of working children actually labour on farms operated by their own families. What explains the apparent paradox that children in households with land are often more likely to be in work and less likely to be in school than kids from families without land?

A paper from Bristol University challenges the assumption that child labour emerges from the poorest households. The report produces evidence that children of families who own or farm land are more likely to be working and less likely to be attending school. It argues that economists who have analysed child labour have put too much emphasis on the inadequate provision of credit and have neglected the possibility that child labour may arise as the result of factors such as the incentive for large landowners to employ their children when it is difficult to hire reliable adult workers.

The ways in which working affects boys and girls differently and the impact that farm work has on their education is explored using an economic model of a typical peasant farming household and the decisions that household makes about production, consumption and labour under different circumstances. This research is also combined with an analysis of large-scale household survey data from rural areas of Ghana and Pakistan shows that:

In Ghana 41% of boys and 34% of girls aged 7-14 work on the household farm.
The participation rates of 10-14 year olds in Pakistan are 22% for boys and 28% for girls.
While children in Ghana do not engage in wage labour, a substantial number of Pakistani children do.
It is easier to combine farm work and school in Ghana – while two thirds of girls working on Ghanaian household farms also attend school, only one in ten of their Pakistani counterparts are able to do so.

Evidence is presented to support the hypothesis that landholdings, whether owned or operated, increase the probability that children work and decrease the probability that they attend school. This ‘wealth paradox’ seems more evident for girls than for boys.

Policy implications arising from the research suggest that:

Many child labour interventions (involving minimum wage legislation and threats of trade sanctions) have little relevance for most working children.
Pakistan could substantially reduce overall child work participation by closing the gender gap in schooling.
Governments should help to increase the benefits of educating daughters – perhaps by providing subsidies to parents which are conditional on girls attending school.
More can be done to reduce labour market discrimination against women and girls.
Post-primary education of mothers has large knock-on effects: investing in women’s education would directly reduce child labour and increase schooling of the current generation.
Economic models of child labour need to incorporate the limitations of land and labour markets.

Source(s):
‘Child farm labor: the wealth paradox’ by Sonia Bhalotra and Christopher Heady, Bristol Economics Discussion Paper No 03/553, Department of Economics, University of Bristol, August 2003 Full document.
‘Child farm labor: the wealth paradox’ by Sonia Bhalotra and Christopher Heady, World Bank Economic Review, vol 17, no 2, pp197-227, January 2004

Funded by: DFID Employment and Labour Markets Programme

id21 Research Highlight: 12 January 2004

Further Information:
Sonia Bhalotra
Department of Economics
University of Bristol
8 Woodland Road
Bristol BS8 1TN
UK

Tel: 44 (0) 117 928 8418
Fax: 44 (0) 117 928 8577
Contact the contributor: s.bhalotra@bristol.ac.uk

University of Bristol

Christopher Heady
Tax Policy and Statistics Division
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development
2, rue André Pascal
F-75775 Paris Cedex 16
France

Tel: 33 (0)1 45 24 93 22
Fax: 33 (0)1 44 30 63 51
Contact the contributor: christopher.heady@oecd.org

Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development

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