Determinants of Child Labor and Schooling in Damot Gale Woreda, Wolaita Zone, Ethiopia

Hailu Sodana Teka

doi:10.7176/dcs/10-10-01

Abstract

Child labor becomes a usual problem in developing countries to affect the schooling performances of most of children as they miss important lessons and fall behind academically. The objective of this study was to examine the determinant factors of child labor and schooling in Damot Gale Woreda, Wolaita Zone, Ethiopia. The study employed both primary and secondary data sources. Primary data was collected from 203 respondent households through interview schedules. Various documents were reviewed to collect the secondary data in order to supplement primary data. Multi-stage sampling technique was used to select the sampled households. Data was analyzed using both descriptive statistics and econometric model analysis. Multinomial logistic regression model result revealed that the relative probability of a child being in child labor is significantly and positively determined by factors such as sex of a child being male, having larger number of pre-school-aged children in the household, larger family size, holding larger farm size, owning large number of livestock, and travelling long distance to fetch pipe water but it is negatively affected by having larger number of school-aged children in the household and higher level of household head education. So, the researchers recommend Government and Non-governmental organizations to play an important role on creating awareness on issues like promoting adult education through formal and informal means, developing programs that target poor households for elimination of child labor and empowering their economic status, and strengthening of social programs that help in fighting against child labor. Keywords: Child labor, schooling, factors, Multinomial logistic model DOI: 10.7176/DCS/10-10-01 Publication date: October 31 st 2020

Highlights

The term childhood varies from society to society, a child is defined as a person under the age of 18 years
57 (28%) were categorized in school only, 47 (23%) were in the category of work only, and 99 (49%) were in both school and work. To see this on gender basis, 21 (36.8%) of male children are engaged in school only, 38(81%) of them are in work only, and 43(43%) of them are engaged in both schooling and work whereas 36(63.2%) of female children are engaged in school only, 9(19%) of them are engaged in work only and 56(57%) of them are engaged in both schooling and work (Table 1)
To see this on the relationship to the household head, 54(34.6%) of biological children are engaged in school only, 6(3.9%) of them are in work only, and 96(61.5%) of them are engaged in both schooling and work whereas 3(6.4%) of non-biological children are engaged in school only, 41(87.2%) of them are engaged in work only and 3(6.4%) of them are engaged in both schooling and work (Table 2)

Summary

Introduction

The term childhood varies from society to society, a child is defined as a person under the age of 18 years. Child labor destroys children’s potential, robbing them of opportunities and perpetuating a cycle of poverty and marginalization. Despite the fact that international labor conventions and different nation’s legislations to protect children from economic exploitation, the practice still continues to prevail and becoming a structural part of many economies in both formal and informal sectors throughout the world especially in developing countries (Gebremedhin, 2013). In these countries around 150 million child ages between 5-14 years are exposing to child work. Around 60% of all exploitative child labor takes place in agriculture, the (labor) dominant sector in LDCs (Bisrat Abebe 2014)

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