Analysis of child labour dimensions and causes in rural farm households of Ogun state, Nigeria

摘要

The prevalence of child labour use in the agricultural sector has been widely reportedhowever, the intensity of its use is most times masked and marred by the informal andculturally ingrained nature of peasant agriculture. The study aims at understanding thedimensions and causes of child labour among rural farm households in Nigeria. Amultistage sampling technique was used to select 128 rural households for the survey; atotal of 352 children (5-17years) were interviewed to elicit first hand data for the study.Structured questionnaire was used to collect data on child farm work hours, householdsize, income, farm size, distance of home to school and other relevant socioeconomiccharacteristics. Analytical techniques used were measures of central tendency anddispersion, and censored Tobit regression model. Results show that the average age ofchildren is 10 years and many of these children (67.3%) are reported to be living withtheir biological parents. While less than a third (26%) of the children work in paid andnon-family farms, the average weekly work hours per child was found to be 31.31which increases with the age of the child. With reference to loss in school time due tofarm work, it was found that rural children in farm households sacrificed an average of12.9 hours per week (42.9%) of school time to work on the farm; this varies fromseason to season. Age and education level of the household head, farm and householdsize, lack of child-level schools in the community, distance of home to school, sex ofchild, absence of tarmac roads to community and proximity of households to majorroads were identified as factors that influence the prevalence and intensity of child farmlabour use. The study concluded that rural infrastructure development and households’economic empowerment initiatives are central to child labour reduction strategies.