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Child Labor in Africa and Asia: Household and Context Determinants of Hours Worked in Paid Labor by Young Children in 16 Low-Income Countries

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Abstract

We study the number of hours children in Africa and Asia are involved in paid child labor on the basis of a newly developed database with information on 169 000 children living in 16 countries. The proportion of involved children varies between 1 and 8 per cent, with generally lower figures in Asia. Children engaged in paid child labor work on average 13 hours in Africa and 30–38 hours in Asia. Our analyses show the variation in the hours children work for pay to be mainly due to household-level factors (in Asia 95 per cent and in Africa 77 per cent), with poverty still a major driving factor. In Asia parental education and demographic and cultural factors also play an important role; in Africa these factors are of lesser importance.

Abstract

Nous étudions le nombre d’heures de travail payé dans lesquelles participent les enfants en Afrique et Asie, en nous basant sur une nouvelle base de données avec information sur 169 000 enfants vivant dans 16 pays. La proportion d’enfants qui travaillent varie entre 1% et 8%, ces figures étaient généralement plus basses en Asie. Notre analyse indique que la variation dans le nombre d’heures payées que les enfants travaillent est principalement causée par des facteurs au niveau de la maison (85% en Asie et 77% en Afrique), la pauvreté étant le facteur principal. En Asie, le niveau d’éducation des parents et d’autres facteurs démographiques et culturels aussi jouent un rôle important; en Afrique, ces facteurs sont moins importants.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the two anonymous referees for their comments and Rutger Schilpzand for his assistance with running the analyses.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, Institute for Management Research, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    Ellen Webbink, Jeroen Smits & Eelke de Jong

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  1. Ellen Webbink
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  2. Jeroen Smits
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  3. Eelke de Jong
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Correspondence to Jeroen Smits.

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Webbink, E., Smits, J. & Jong, E. Child Labor in Africa and Asia: Household and Context Determinants of Hours Worked in Paid Labor by Young Children in 16 Low-Income Countries. Eur J Dev Res 27, 84–98 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1057/ejdr.2014.19

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