Child Farm Labour in Rural Households of South-West, Nigeria

Abstract

This paper investigate the level of child labour participation in cassava production in south-west, Nigeria. A multi stage random sampling technique was employed to select the sample respondents. Data were collected with the aid of well structured questionnaires to elicit information from 252 sampled respondents. Data were analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. Result shows that there are structural differences in the choice of child activity options across gender and age categories. School and work activity status revealed that school enrolment of girls was 10.53% compared to boys of 25%. Also, 53.9% of the boys further their education beyond primary school level compare to 39.5% of the girls. Results further showed that while more boys were engaged in farming operations than the girls, more female children combined schooling with work. Using multinomial logit model to examined the relationship between schooling and labour force decisions, it was revealed that some variables such age of the child, biological child, quality of shelter lived, availability of schools and parents' education have a positive significant effect on schooling decision of a child while time spent on farm and cassava farm size have a significant negative relationship on child's schooling decision. Based on the above, it is recommended that for effective policy formulation to reduce child labour, all these important variables must be taken into consideration.

Keywords: child labour, participation, agriculture, Nigeria