The Determinant and Impact of Child Labor on Children�??s Education Performance in Chiro Woreda-Western Hararghe Zone - Oromia National Regional State-Ethiopia

Getaye Gizaw^* and Chala Gelana
^*Correspondence: Getaye Gizaw, Principal investigator, Oda Bultum University, Ethiopia, Email:

Keywords

Child labor • Determinant • Education • Impact • Labor

Background of the Study

Child labor has long been a critical issue. Over the last decades, child labor in developing Countries have been of particular concern. This is not only because child labor is a moral issue but also because of its significant impact on children’s development, a decisive factor for a country’s future growth and development [1,2]. The world’s attention on child labor has been increasing as there is a significant number of child labor in developing countries and their involvement in exploitative or dangerous work. This is not only because child labor is a moral issue but also because of its significant impact on children’s development, a decisive factor for a country’s future growth and development [1,2]. Child labor is the exploitation of the children energies and potential at work rather than giving proper opportunity to study. Child labor is the employment of children when they are too young to work on wages or when they are employed for jobs unsuitable or unsafe (Grand, 1983). Similarly [3] define child labor as child labor is any work by children that interferes with their full physical development, their opportunities for a desirable education or their needed recreation. Child labor is a widespread and growing phenomenon in the world especially in developing countries. However, it has been very difficult to get the exact figure of children engaged in labor in many countries partly due to the hidden nature of the problem [4] and differences in definition of who is considered child and what constitute labor. Child labor is affecting the course of development for the entire world and is a major problem faced by the global community now (Hirway et al. 1991). ILO defines all those under 18 as children. According to ILO labor is economically active when a person works on a regular basis for which he/ she is remunerated or that results in output destined for market. But in the Ethiopian context where market is missing, this definition is too restrictive. In 2018 there were 218 million children working illegally in the eyes of international law, almost 19% of all the world ‘s children under 18. The global total includes 152 million are victims of child labor, almost half of them 73 million work in hazardous child labor. In absolute term, almost half of child labor (72.1 million) is to be found in Africa; 62.1 million in the Asia and the Pacific; 10.7 million in the Americas; 1.2 million in the Arab States and 5.5 million in Europe and Central Asia. Almost half of all 152 million children victims of child labor are aged 5-11 years; 42 million (28%) are 12-14 years old; and 37 million (24%) are 15-17 years old. Among 152 million children in the child labor, 88 million are boys and 64 million are girls. Child labor is concentrated primarily in agriculture (71%), which includes fishing, forestry, livestock herding and aquaculture, and comprises farming; 17% in services; and 12% in the industrial sector, including mining (ILO 2012-2016). Children work for a multitude of reasons- economic and socio-cultural. Poverty is the main cause for the involvement of millions of children in work related activities which are deemed to be detrimental for their normal, psychological and educational development. Poor parents send their children to work, not out of choice, but for economic reasons [5]. In such scenarios, child labor is a matter of survival than of a choice. Many of the working children have neither access to education nor have adequate remuneration, satisfactory working and living conditions. They are not protected from the most harmful and exploitative practices. Almost all child labor occurs in developing countries, with about 60% engaged in agriculture. In addition to subsistence farming, African child labor laborers are also employed in commercial farming, which is concentrated in two geographical regions: the countries of coastal West Africa and the East African plateau [6]. Ethiopia, as one of the developing African Countries, encounters exorbitant child labor. The problem is pervasive in the rural part where not less than 85% of the national population resides. Apart from the short-run impacts exploitative child labor limits (in many cases denies) children ‘s access to schooling which in the long-run threatens the future development prospect of the country. Ethiopia has ratified the ILO Minimum Age for Admission to Employment Convention of 1973 and the ILO Convention against the Worst Forms of Child labor. Besides International Conventions, the country has instituted protection for children in its constitution which provides that children under 18 have a right to be protected from work that is exploitative, hazardous or otherwise inappropriate or their age, detrimental to their schooling, or detrimental to their social, physical, mental, spiritual or moral development. According to the Ethiopian Labor Law, the minimum age to start work is 14 (TGE, 1993).

Statement of the Problem

Child labour is widespread in developing countries. Most of working [7,8] study in developing countries, children make substantial contribution to house hold income and also considered as a gantry at old age security, ether by performing in house hold tasks in rural areas or employed in formal sector in urban areas. However, these two economic benefits from children are linked as parents face a tradeoff between present and future consumption. In the sub Saharan Africa and South Asian countries typically school enrolment is low and child labour is wide spread. The children in these areas work in contracts as plantation work, tender arrangements, bounded labour and sub-controlled piece work. And child labour in these countries affects school performance as children miss important lessons and fall behind academically (Ravinder, 2009). Ethiopia is a country where the incidence of child labor is higher and at the same time the rate of schooling is far lower. Child labor participation rate is estimated to be higher than 40% in the country. Children often begin to participate in work activities at their early age usually when they are 4 or 5 [8,9] and on average contribute 29-30 hours of labor per week [8,9]. Children are engaged in all forms of paid work, in factories, commercial as well as subsistence agriculture, service industries, shops, market places and in household chores [10]. Engagement in economic activities at an early age and participation especially in hazardous and exploitative work could have a devastating effect on children's physical and mental development and might also cause irreversible damage leading to permanent disability (ILO, 1998). It has long been recognized that promoting and ensuring universal basic education is crucial to get rid of poverty. Moreover, having access to education is part of the basic rights of humanity. This has been formally stipulated in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that achieving universal primary education is a priority. As part of the international community Ethiopia has placed significant value on the multi-faceted role that education can have in efforts to bring about development. In Ethiopia, as in several other Sub- Saharan Africa countries, a large number of individuals enter the labour market below the age of 15 and with little or no formal education (Guarcello et al, 2007). Results as presented in [11] from large integrated household data by Addis Ababa University and the centered for the study of Africa Economics, indicated that Ethiopia has the lowest gross (34 percent) and net (21 percent) primary school enrolment rates in the world and rural enrolment rates are even lower than the national average. According to the study done by [12] on child workers in brick making factories in Cambodia, showed that many child workers (55.6% of brick factories children) were not in school. About three fourth of them quitted school more than two years due to several reasons such as economic hardship , family debt , lack of money for school supplies and personal reasons (poor grade, negative attitudes towards schooling, wanting to be with friends who work, wanting money for personal needs, or wanting to stay away from parents who frequently quarreled). Even when work activities do not prevent a child from participating in school, they may shrink study time or tire the child to the point of impairing concentration and learning. Using information on school performance from exam results appear to be worse for children with multiple work activities and long school day and weekend hours (Cockburn, 2002). As indicated U.S. Department of labor’s 2010 finding the worst forms of child labour Children are exploited in the worst forms of child labour in Ethiopia, many of them in agricultural activities and domestic service. Roughly 89 percent of working children in rural areas are engaged in agriculture. Although evidence is limited, there is reason to believe that the worst forms of child labour are used in the production of coffee, cotton, sugarcane, and tea. Children’s work in agriculture may involve the use of potentially dangerous machinery and tools, carrying of heavy loads, and the application of harmful pesticides. Children, especially boys, engage in cattle herding, in which they work long hours. In urban areas, children mostly girls work in domestic service, where they may be vulnerable to sexual and other forms of abuse. So far, some studies (Assefa, 2002; Assefa and Arjun, 2005; Arjun and Assefa, 2009; Beliyou, 2003; Cockburn, 2000; Cockburn, 2001; Tasew et al, 2005; Chaudhury et al, 2006; Getinet and Beliyou, 2007) have been conducted to investigate the child labor in Ethiopia. Given the importance of early childhood for children’s success in their later life (Becker and Tomes, 1986), understanding the impact of child labor on children’s outcomes is particularly important. To date, most studies on child labor have focused on investigating particularly the determinant of child labor or the impact of child labor on children’s health. However, the major challenge of child labor especially in developing nation like Ethiopia is its impact on children’s education performance. The methodology of this study is significantly different from previous studies by focusing examining determinants and impact of child labor on children’s educational performance with survey datasets which was not adequately explored.

Methodology of the study

The study was conducted on determinants of child labor and its impact on educational achievement in Eastern Ethiopia, Particularly in Chiro Woreda. And the target population of the study was child laborers found in Chiro Woreda. Although quantitative data had used at a larger degree, to reduce the limitation of single method, qualitative data also used along with quantitative data, it had been supported the researcher to interpret and better understand the reality of a situation. Primary data collection method was the main technique to gather information from the working children and other concerned individuals in the study areas. Various methods were put in practice to collect primary data/first-hand information. The major Instruments that applied to explore the situation in the study area were questionnaire and focus group discussion methods.To select a sample for the study, sampling frame is required, however, as the researcher mentioned above, due to lack of reliable data about how many child laborer’s and on what types of economic they engaged in the study area, the researcher used, purposive non probability sampling; where the sample respondents or the units that are investigated are based on the preliminary study about child labor situation in the study area. As a result, considering these facts a total of 220 child laborer’s samples used for the survey. To obtain more detail and meaningful answers on sensitive and personal topic, the study undertook focus group discussion with the children in order to enrich information gathered through other methods. Three focus group discussions were conducted separately, two with child laborer’s and one with parents who are residing currently in chiro Woreda. The data was collected from December 2019 up to April 2020 for five months.

Results and Discussions

General Demographic Characteristics of Respondents

The table above shows the distribution of child laborer’s (who were engaged in Child chat conducting, Child shoe polishing, Children working in metal and wood workshops, Children Working in small restaurants at the time of the survey) by age and sex and from it, it can be seen that from a total of 220 child workers 140 (63.6%) are males and 80 (36.4%) are females. shoe polishing, working in garage and furniture workshops is the traditional domain of men, a brief look at the data presented in Table 1 implies that males have greater tendency to be involved in those above work than females however works traditionally left for women like cooking and cleaning registered a few females as worker, as a result from 59 children who were hired in small restaurants 32of them were females. Also, the age of the respondents ranges from 9 to 17, but 52.3% of the respondents are within the age group of 9-14 and Child workers within the age group of 15 to 17 accounted for 47.7 percent. It was necessary to examine the family status of child laborers to know whether this had any impact in forcing children to engage in working activities. Within this frame work, child workers that participated in the survey were asked to report the circumstances of their parents, paternal educational status, maternal educational status, paternal occupation and maternal occupation. In the survey, information on education level of parents was collected from every child worker that participated in the survey. The purpose was to understand the impact of educational level of parents in influencing children to take up in working participation.

Table 2 presents the educational status of the parents of the child workers. Overall, about 49(107%) of the fathers of child workers and 65(143%) of the mothers of the child workers were found to be illiterate. Among the illiterate parents, mothers registered slightly higher illiteracy level than fathers. As indicated in Table 3 about 64(29 %) of the fathers and 41(19%) of the mothers were able to read and write. Looking into the population by grade level, 29(13%) of fathers and 21(10 %) of mothers were found to be those that completed grades1-6. The findings of study also indicate that the majority of the child workers that participated in the survey come from illiterate families and families with poor educational background and the number of working children declines with the increase in the educational level of the parents. Specially as mother’s educational level increases the number of working children shows decrease [13] also found that parental education is more ubiquitous than any other in determining child labor: it plays a persistent, powerful and negative role in the family’s decision to put a child to work. The more years of school both mothers and fathers have, the more likely they are to devote their children’s time exclusively to school, even controlling for household income. They found in the case of Colombia the parental education effect is particularly pronounced. Each year of each parents’ education lowers the probability that their child will work full time by 2 percentage points in rural Colombia. Educated parents are more likely to send their children to school full-time or to combine work and school than to put children to work only. According to the above summarized table the majority of the respondents’ father occupation was farming 107(49%) and daily laborers and self-employee were 73(33%) and 26(12%) respectively. Regarding the occupation of mother’s farming activities was the major 70(32%) occupation followed by self-employment which was 43(19%), however the majority 57(26%) of the respondent mothers were just a house wife who hadn’t any income generating job.

The working condition of the child

As Table 4 summarize the responses of child workers, 176(80 percent) of them were engaged in working activity only which means only 20 percent of working children in the study area were attended school. During the data collection period the irregular nature of working hours and working days for the majority of child workers found it difficult for them to tell the exact number of hours worked in a day and the exact number of days in a week. Thus, the accuracy of the data on the number of working hours and days should be accepted with caution. As presented in table 4 the majority of child workers, 39 percent (86) were engaged in working activities seven days a week. On the other hand, child workers who work six days a week and five days a week accounted for 23 percent (51) and 21 percent (46) respectively. Those respondents who reported said they were working four days a week accounted for 17percent (37), no child worker said only three, two and one day per week. Regarding the amount of time spent on work per day, on average, children works 11.15 hours per day. In order to capture the negative effects of child labour on school attendance and academic performance, parents of children and the children themselves participated in the focus group discussions were asked to comment on the negative impact of engaging in working activities on the education of the child workers. Information obtained from the focus group discussion held with child laborers indicated that they find it hard to attend school, and when they attend, they find it difficult to concentrate in class because they are extremely exhausted from long hours of working. Focus group discussion held with the parents and guardians of child laborer’s revealed that the major reason why many parents and guardians were not sending their children to school was poverty. The parents and guardians commented that even if education in government school is free the costs of exercise books, uniforms and other forms of payments are extremely high and they cannot even afford to feed their children let alone send them to school. On the other hand, parents and guardian whose children were attending school expressed their concern over their children's future and felt that it was too hard for their children to study and work at the same time. As indicated in the above Table 5 out of the total number of respondent’s 50 percent (111) of the child workers who participated in the survey indicated introducing themselves to the current work they engaged. This done on their own initiative in an attempt to reduce the economic hardship they were facing.

Schooling participation of the child: Siddiqi (n.d) also support that Schooling problems also contribute to child labour. Many times, children seek employment simply because there is no access to schools (distance, no school at all). When there is access, the low quality of the education often makes attendance a waste of time for the students. Schools in many developing areas suffer from problems such as overcrowding, inadequate sanitation and apathetic teachers. As a result, parents may find no use in sending their children to school when they could be home learning a skill (for example, agriculture) and supplementing the family income. However, in this study according to the summarized data in the above table 6 the more than half of the child laborers responded the school distance, schooling cost, low quality of school/un conductive school environment was not their reason to join working activities which were accounted for 56%, 54% and 51% respectively. The other main factor that frequently mentioned by the children when the researcher discussed with them was they don’t like to go to school and the repetition of grade and the lowest grade they scored discouraged them to continuing in their schooling as result they migrate to chiro and around chiro Woreda to search a job without permission of their parents or guardians. Time spent on work takes away from study, play and sleep may undermine the effectiveness of the working children in pursuing their education. With respect to educational attainment level, child workers who were Preprimary (Never attended) educational level constituted the majority 37% percent of the total respondents in the survey. These child laborers were followed by those who were complete primary education level (5-8) who accounted for 33% percent. Out of the total number of child laborer’s that participated in the survey those who were currently attending primary education and secondary education constituted 18 percent and 12 percent respectively. The picture that emerges from these findings is that a large percentage of child workers that constituted 70 percent of the total number of respondents were either school dropouts or had never been enrolled in school. The findings from the focus group discussion of the study indicate that majority of children who end up working instead of going to school were forced by the circumstances rather than a deliberate choice of their own. Thus, in order to reduce the negative impact of child labour on the education of the children that participated in the survey, it requires solving the problems that families and children face which are primarily economic in nature Table 7.

Correlation analysis of the effects of Child labour on children’s schooling: Evidence from the descriptive statistics has shown that children perform a multitude of activities which may have implications for their ability to attend school. The probability of a child to go to school, to work or to engage in a combination of them tends to be a result of various children, parental, household, school-related variables. This section is devoted to the discussion of the correlation analysis of the impact of those variables on the child work-school participation decision. Correlation using two-tailed Pearson analysis was used to examine the relationship between each research question variables. Correlation analysis provides correlation coefficient that indicates the strength and direction of the linear relationship. The main measure of the degree of association is known as the Pearson product moment correlation coefficient and is designated with by the letter r which in turn is an estimate of the population correlation coefficient designated by the Greek letter p (Rosenthal et al, 2008, cited in Desta, 2012). The correlation coefficient r may range in value from -1.00 to +1.00, where r=+1.00 signifies a perfect positive liner correlation relationship. The convergence true, where r=-1.00 a perfect negative liner correlation relation exists. Where r=0, no relationship exists between the variables. The closer the correlation a coefficient is to one, the stronger the positive correlation between the variables and the closer the correlation coefficients are to zero the weaker the correlation between the variables. And the p-value, the statistically significant level is the smallest alpha sign (alpha value) for which the observed sample result helps the researcher to conclude whether there is a significant (correlation) relationship between the variables. The p-level represents the probability of error that is involved in accepting the observed result as valid, that is, as a representative of the population (Kachigan, 1991, cited in Desta, 2012). From Table 8 it is evident that there a weak but significant negative relationship between the child main current activity (to work or to schooling) and low family income (which was made the child decide to work) (r=-0.295**, p=0.001). The relatively weak negative relationship between the child main current activity and living arrangement is significant at (r=-0.194*, p=0.35). And also, there is weak and negative but significant relationship between child labour and the child's family occupation (r=-0.190*, p=0.038). And finally, we can observe that there is weak but positive significant relationship between child labour and unconducive school environment (r=0.221*, p=0.026). As a result, the researcher founds that there is sufficient evidence, at 1% level of significant, that there is a negative relationship between low family income and child labour/work which is related to force the children to engage in work to support their low level of their family income. And there is sufficient evidence, at 5% level of significance, that there is a negative relationship between living arrangement of the children and child labor; this shows there is tendency of children who raised by single parents, specially female single parents to engage in child labor or join the labour market and also children living with other than parent in our case with guardians, relatives and friends a more probability of engage in labor activity. And also, there is sufficient evidence; and school quality/ unconducive school environment have positive relationship between child laborer’s, at 1% level of significance, this shows that the unconducive schooling environment pushed the children to quite school and join employment. In addition the researcher concludes that there is sufficient evidence, at 5% level of significance, that there is negative relationship between child labour and the child’s father occupation this showed as a father out from unstable job and subsistence income and engaged in more stable job which can assure the family income makes the chance of the children to join working activity decrease. This finding seems to be in agreement with the finding of previous studies that if the father is employed in a vulnerable occupation, for example, day-labour or wagelabour, it raises the probability that a child will work full time or combine work and study (Khanam, 2006). From Table 9 it is evident that there is a significant, negative relationship between the child's current education level and child work/labour (r = -0.381**, p = 0.00).The researcher found that there is sufficient evidence, at 1% level of significance, that there is a negative relationship between the child's current education level or achievement and child work. This showed, that child labour could compromise schooling achievement the child who combines both school and work, it refrain the child to fully engage in educational activities (study, doing homework). To the extreme child labour makes the children to not at least combine school and work, but forced them to quit schooling. Khanam (2006) and Heady (2000) finding also supported that child labour adversely affects the child’s schooling or learning achievement, which is reflected in lower school attendance, lower grade attainment and high dropout rate.

Conclusions and Recommendations

Despite growing concern about the damaging effects of child labour by international and national institutions related to labour and child right the fate of the vast majority of children in the informal sector has not been investigated to the extent that the seriousness of the issue. Work related activities such as working on the family farm and domestic chores which are often excluded from child labour definition could have implications for the overall developments of children. Compared to the reference group of nonworking children, the educational achievements of those undertaking the various forms of activities would be impaired as work and schooling compete for time (Assefa, 2002). The study finding indicates that the main cause that forces children to engage in working activities is the wide spread poverty in their families. Poverty and the need of poor families for income are the most important factors that push children to engage in working activities. The conclusion one can draw from this finding is that living arrangements sometimes does have a direct impact on whether a child should work or not and other intervening variables such as poverty, migration status, death of parents may facilitate the process. The other main factor that frequently mentioned by the children when the researcher discussed with them was: loss of interest in schooling and the repetition of grade and the lowest grade they scored discouraged them to continuing in their schooling as result they migrate to chiro Woreda and around the Woreda to search a job without permission of their parents or guardians. It is found that education strengthen itself, the number of working children declines with the increase in the educational level of the parents. Specially as mother’s level increase the number of working children shows decrease, meaning that parental education level of the increase’s household awareness about the importance of education and the detrimental impacts of excessive children’s education. Thus, in order to reduce the negative impact of child labour on the education of the children it requires solving the problems that families and children face which are primarily economic in nature. As a result, Parents should be given encouragement and advice on how to start income generating activities. Schemes like credit facilities should also have to be arranged for them. This will enable parents to give up the income contribution of their children and to meet their basic needs. It has been found that education level of the parents has interesting implications for the child time allocation decision. Adult training through formal and informal means can be a potential area to focus on to mitigate child labour and build human capital via investment in education of children. The education of children is the basis for sustained national economic development. However, large proportion of the child workers that participated in the study was either illiterate or school dropouts. Therefore, policy measures that resort child workers from work to school should be put in place so as to make public schools well equipped and attractive to children and their parents.

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