The Impacts of Demographic and Economic Variables on the Rural Household Decision of Children Primary Schooling: Evidence from Four Kebeles around Bako Town in West Shoa Zone
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Date
2005-07
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A.A.U
Abstract
Under a given education supply, household demand for child schooling is very important.
Particularly, in rural areas where the child work contribution is commonly high,
investigating the impacts of demographic and economic variables enable to understand
the demand side determinants of schooling for males and females in detail. This paper
investigates the primary schooling of 455 children of ages 7 to 18 years from 155
randomly selected households in four Kebeles around Bako Tow in April 2004. The
central assumption is that child work - increasing household resources slow down
schooling and vice versa in missing markets. The pro bit estimates of the reduced form
schooling equation show greater systematic determination by the observed household
characteristics for females than they do for males in general. This indicates greater
effective choice between work and schooling for the former. On the other hand, there is
no statistically different gender disparity in rates of schooling. This calls for further socio
logical investigations to find out why a number of male children are out of school.
Next, with too meager incidence of paid work, especially for the children who are too
young to be employed on international standard, the violation of child rights, in terms of
right to primary education, is found to be associated with household workloads for
female children. Whether excessive work compounds the problem in terms of health and
psychological influences should be a future research agenda in order to reveal the
incidence of the unacceptable forms of child labor. With regard to age categories as
could be expected, there are distinct degrees of systematic relationships between child
schooling and most variables as we move across age groups. Therefore, interventions
that are meant to increase child schooling have to be aware of such differential responses
across sex and age categories.
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Keywords
Bako,, child schooling, economic and demographic variables