To work or not to work: household decisions on working children
Date
2002-03
Authors
Ico, Ronaldo D.
Santiago, Sherwin Edison R.
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Abstract
It is now well understood that a major cause of child labor is the poverty of the household. In this study, it attempts to analyze other factors other than poverty that drive households to send their children to work. There exists an area of bargaining in each particular household to come up with a decision on working children. The bargaining power of each member of the household depends on the amount of resources one brings to the household and on the external and inherent factors of the household like his/her characteristics, values, attitudes and environment.
Using the 1995 National Survey for Working Children, it shows that both the characteristics of child and household head play an important role in the decision making of entry of working children. As there is more working children in rural areas, there is a great disparity in decisions among households living in urban and rural areas. A household in an urban area that owns more human and physical assets like education and land is less likely to send children to work than one in a rural area. The sex and birth order of the child can foretell the decision of the household. The household head has greater influences in the decision making in rural areas because of the prevailing culture of traditional Filipino families as compared to urban areas. By examining its needs, a household would determine how to allocate time of each of its members. With the interplay of the preferences of the working child and the household head given each time constraint, the decision of the household is known.
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Keywords
Child Labor, Child work, Labor supply, Working children, Labor