Coulombe, Harold (2000) Child labour and schooling in West Africa : a three country study. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

Although child labour has been around since ever, it is only recently that the topic has
captured economists' consideration. Theoretical contributions to its understanding are
only starting to be published. Most researchers have concentrated their energy on
empirical studies based on utility-maximising framework. This thesis would hopefully
contribute to this understanding throught statistical evidences from three West African
coastal countries: Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire and Benin. In this thesis, school attendance is
examined in as much details as child labour. In the African context where almost all
child labour occurred within family enterprises, child labour would be judged foremost
by its deterrent effect on human capital-building activities.
Using fully comparable datasets, we first analyse and compare our Ghanaian and
Ivorian findings. These two neighbouring countries could be seen as participants in a
"natural experiment" since they share similar ecological, ethnographic and
geographical environments but differ on one extremely important point, their modern
institutions, especially their schooling systems inherited from their respective former
colonial powers. We would see how different education systems shape not only
schooling behaviour, but child labour force levels and characteristics.
Then, using a completely different type of household survey, we will analyse child's
allocation of time in a broader framework in which we have information on hours
spent on an exhausitive list of activities, including time spent on home study. These
detailed data would enable us to examine to which extent child labour has a deterrent
effect not only schooling participation, but also on the human capital-enhancing home
study.

Item Type:	Thesis or Dissertation (PhD)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Child labor -- Africa, West, School attendance -- Africa, West, Children -- Ghana, Children -- Côte d'Ivoire, Children -- Benin
Official Date:	December 2000
Dates:	Date Event December 2000 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of Economics
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Arulampalam, Wiji
Extent:	ix, 215 p.
Language:	eng

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