Title: Does child labour affect school absenteeism? Evidence from some selected lower-middle-income countries

Authors: Sajib Chowdhury; Mohammed Ziaul Haider

Addresses: Economics Discipline, Social Science School, Khulna University, Bangladesh ' Economics Discipline, Social Science School, Khulna University, Bangladesh

Abstract: This study attempts to investigate the impact of child labour on school absenteeism by using the multiple indicator cluster survey (MICS3) dataset of purposively selected five lower-middle-income countries. Logistic regression, Tobit and negative binomial regression have been used to trace out the association. The study samples include primary and secondary level students. This study finds that approximately one-fifth of the students in Bangladesh, three out of every ten students in Djibouti, and one out of every ten students in Vietnam, Nigeria, and Ukraine missed more than one-day per week. The empirical analysis suggests that age, parental education, and wealth status negatively influence school absenteeism. Interestingly, the study finds that increasing hours of child work is significantly positively related to school absenteeism for all the countries. Therefore, this study recommends strengthening the cash transfer program and focusing on parental involvement in children's education to address the problems.

Keywords: absenteeism; child labour; student; MICS3; lower-middle-income country; LMIC.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEED.2023.131994

International Journal of Education Economics and Development, 2023 Vol.14 No.3, pp.332 - 356

Received: 01 Nov 2021
Accepted: 26 May 2022

Published online: 06 Jul 2023 *

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