Are Work and Schooling Complementary or Competitive for Children in Rural Ethiopia? A Mixed-Methods Study

Orkin, Kate

doi:10.1057/9780230362796_18

Cited by 19 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…We included all children resident in the house, including those who also examine annual spending on schooling for children in the household in the previous school year, a total of the amount spent on uniforms, stationery and books, textbooks, and donations to the school -at baseline 186 ETB (11 USD) per year (including households with no spending on schooling). This is consistent with estimates in other rural parts of Ethiopia (Orkin, 2012).…”

Section: Appendix Tablesupporting

confidence: 92%

The Future in Mind: Aspirations and Forward-Looking Behaviour in Rural Ethiopia

et al. 2014

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Poor people often do not make investments, even when returns are high. One possible explanation is that they have low aspirations and form mental models of their future opportunities which ignore some options for investment. This paper reports on a field experiment to test this hypothesis in rural Ethiopia. Individuals were randomly invited to watch documentaries about people from similar communities who had succeeded in agriculture or business, without help from government or NGOs. A placebo group watched an Ethiopian entertainment programme and a control group were simply surveyed. In addition, the number of people invited was varied by village to assess the importance of peer effects in formation of aspirations. Six months after screening, aspirations had improved among treated individuals and did not change in the placebo or control groups. Treatment effects were larger for those with higher pre-treatment aspirations. We also find treatment effects on savings, use of credit, children's school enrolment and spending on children's schooling, suggesting that changes in aspirations can translate into changes in a range of forward-looking behaviours. There are also treatment effects on measures from psychology and sociology, including locus of control, which theory predicts should behave in similar ways to aspirations. Most effects are robust to corrections for multiple testing. Peer effects results in further impact on educational spending and induce more work and less leisure. The result that a one-hour documentary shown six months earlier induces actual behavioural change suggests a challenging, promising avenue for further research and poverty-related interventions.

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Section: Appendix Tablesupporting

confidence: 92%

The Future in Mind: Aspirations and Forward-Looking Behaviour in Rural Ethiopia

et al. 2014

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“…Half of the studies used a sequential design, mostly starting with the analysis of quantitative survey data and followed by in-depth qualitative work for more nuanced insights. Two studies used sequential mixed-methods designs with multiple qualitative and quantitative rounds that sequentially informed and built on each other (Orkin 2012;Verité 2016). The latter study presented a major multi-country research project on forced labour conducted for an international civil society organisation (called Verité 5 ).…”

Section: Mixed-methods Studies Of Child Labourmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Young Lives study is a notable exception to this and has underpinned various investigations into the impact of children's work. Several studies (Orkin 2012;Woldehanna et al 2008) explored the impact of child labour on school attendance. Drawing on both qualitative and quantitative evidence, the authors found that work and school attendance may be successfully combined depending on the time each activity takes and the characteristics of each activity.…”

Section: Opportunities and Challenges Of Mixed-methods Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding Children’s Harmful Work: A Review of the Methodological Landscape

Roelen¹,

Barnett²,

Johnson³

et al. 2020

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Children’s engagement with work has been widely researched using a wide variety of methods. However, the extent to which such methods and their combination provides insight into forms of children’s harmful work (CHW) is not obvious. This paper reviews and assesses respective opportunities and challenges of the main methods that have been used to study children’s engagement with work. It proposes research design principles and a methodological landscape for an integrated approach to child-centred, inclusive, and ethical research of CHW.

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“…According to the 2015 National Child Labour Survey (CSA and ILO, 2018), 15.9 per cent of children between the ages of 5 and 11, 38.4 per cent of those between 12 and 13, and 34.8 per cent of those between 14 and 17 years of age work, attend school and are also involved in household chores at the same time (p. 48). Work is usually combined with school, since education is highly valued and considered an important indication of well-being by both children and parents (Orkin, 2012). For poor children, education is seen as an investment for the future and a means to securing a decent life in adulthood (Chuta and Crivello, 2013;Crivello and Boyden, 2014;Harden, Backett-Milburn, MacLean and Jamieson, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aspirations and Setbacks of Working Children in Addis Ababa: Can They Realise Their Futures?

Mulugeta

Eriksen

2019

Children & Society

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Based on interviews with 45 children, this article looks at the life situations and aspirations of working children in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, including their hopes, efforts and struggles to make their dreams come true. Pushed by the need for survival, the children work and nearly half go to school. They demonstrate agency, taking care of themselves, supporting families and aspiring to change their lives. However, they also face challenges that make achieving their aspirations difficult. The authors argue that agency alone is not sufficient to help them realise their aspirations unless buffered by supportive structures and systems.

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Are Work and Schooling Complementary or Competitive for Children in Rural Ethiopia? A Mixed-Methods Study

Cited by 19 publications

References 23 publications

The Future in Mind: Aspirations and Forward-Looking Behaviour in Rural Ethiopia

The Future in Mind: Aspirations and Forward-Looking Behaviour in Rural Ethiopia

Understanding Children’s Harmful Work: A Review of the Methodological Landscape

Aspirations and Setbacks of Working Children in Addis Ababa: Can They Realise Their Futures?

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