Determinants of Child Labour and Schooling in the Native Cocoa Households of Côte d'Ivoire
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Date
2009-10-30
Authors
Nkamleu, Guy Blaise
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
African Economic Research consortium
Abstract
Child labour is a widespread and growing phenomenon in the developing world. This
paper looks at the determinants of child labour participation in the cocoa farming sector
of Côte d’Ivoire, an issue of special interest because the country accounts for
approximately 40% of the world’s cocoa production. The study investigates child labour
in conjunction with schooling status of children. It is based on a study done in 2002 that
surveyed a representative sample of more than 11,000 members of cocoa households. A
multinomial logit model was used to capture choice probabilities across work and school
options.
The results reveal that child labour in cocoa farms and non-enrolment in schools are
significant. Moreover, many children are involved in potentially dangerous and/or harmful
tasks. Data also highlight gender and age dimensions in the participation of children in
tasks and the way labour is allocated. Econometric results generally indicated that the
gender and age of children, whether or not the child is the biological child of the household
head, parents’ education, the household dependency ratio, the farm size, the cocoa
productivity level, the number of sharecroppers working with the household head, agroecological zone and communities’ characteristics are all pertinent in explaining the child
work/schooling outcome