Child Labour and School Attendance in Somalia

Abstract

This study uses data from Somalia to analyze child activity status. Using multinomial logit model, the study set out to analyze what determines a household decision to put a child in one of the four states – schooling, working, combining schooling and work, or doing nothing for 7-15 year old children. The study results show that the parent’s education considerably increases the likelihood that a school-age child will specialize in school attendance. The results also show that an increase of the number of members in the household raises the probability that a school-age child will “study only” or “work and study” relative to the child being “School only”. Another fascinating finding of the study is that as children age the probability of attending school only increases and the probability of working only and working and attending school declines. The significant and positive gender coefficient suggests that female child is more likely than male child to combine schooling with work. Furthermore, the study finds that the children residing in urban areas have a higher probability to be combining school and work than children from rural areas. The results show children from the north east and northwest are more likely to be in work only than a child from south central regions. However, this study’s central message is that child labour adversely affects the child’s schooling