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

Abstract

The prevalence of child labour use in the agricultural sector has been widely reported however, the intensity of its use is most times masked and marred by the informal and culturally ingrained nature of peasant agriculture. The study aims at understanding the dimensions and causes of child labour among rural farm households in Nigeria. A multistage sampling technique was used to select 128 rural households for the survey; a total 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, household size, income, farm size, distance of home to school and other relevant socioeconomic characteristics. Analytical techniques used were measures of central tendency and dispersion, and censored Tobit regression model. Results show that the average age of children is 10 years and many of these children (67.3%) are reported to be living with their biological parents. While less than a third (26%) of the children work in paid and non-family farms, the average weekly work hours per child was found to be 31.31 which increases with the age of the child. With reference to loss in school time due to farm work, it was found that rural children in farm households sacrificed an average of 12.9 hours per week (42.9%) of school time to work on the farm; this varies from season to season. Age and education level of the household head, farm and household size, lack of child-level schools in the community, distance of home to school, sex of child, absence of tarmac roads to community and proximity of households to major roads were identified as factors that influence the prevalence and intensity of child farm labour use. The study concluded that rural infrastructure development and households' economic empowerment initiatives are central to child labour reduction strategies.

Pengaruh Karakteristik Sosiodemografi Kepala Rumah Tangga dan Anak Terhadap Kecenderungan Anak Terlibat dalam Pekerjaan Berbahaya di Sektor Pertanian: Analisis Data SAKERNAS

“…KRT adalah orang yang bertanggung jawab terhadap kebutuhan bahkan keputusan dalam rumah tangga tersebut. Pekerja anak dengan KRT perempuan cenderung lebih besar peluangnya (Adeoye et al, 2017;Bikoue, 2021;Gaetano et al, 2016). Namun menurut Abou (2014) di Côte d'Ivoire, Afrika, pekerja anak perempuan mempunyai peluang lebih besar pada rumah tangga dengan KRT perempuan.…”

“…Bahkan anak stigma gender juga melekat pada anak. Anak laki-laki cenderung mempunyai peluang lebih besar untuk bekerja dibanding perempuan (Adeoye et al, 2017;Gaetano et al, 2016;Kazmi, 2015;Sahoo, 2021). Sedangkan semakin bertambah umur anak maka peluang menjadi pekerja anak juga semakin besar.…”

“…Semakin tua KRT yang bekerja di sektor pertanian maka semakin besar peluang anak untuk tidak menjadi pekerja anak. Menurut Adeoye et al (2017), semakin tinggi umur KRT semakin sedikit waktu yang dibebankan kepada anak untuk terlibat di ladang. Namun apabila KRT tersebut bekerja sebagai pemilik usaha pertanian maka peluang untuk menjadi pekerja anak akan meningkat sebesar 0,87 persen pada pekerjaan yang tidak berbahaya dan sebesar 0,28 persen pada pekerjaan yang berbahaya.…”