Abstract:
ABSTRACT
The study focused on ‘Child Labour and Human Capital Formation in the
Central Region of Ghana’. In general, the study focused on the parents’ attitude
to supply child labour and how it affects child human capital formation of
children between 5-17 years in the public basic schools in the Central Region
of Ghana. A multi-stage with simple random and purposive sampling
techniques were used in the study. A total sample size of 788 children with their
parents were interviewed. Head teachers/class teachers served as informant. A
detailed structured interview with questionnaire was adopted as the data
collection technique for the study. Probit, biprobit, ordinary least squares,
IVprobit and propensity score matching models were adopted for the
estimation. The findings of the study showed that parental attitude of positive
stigma significantly increases the probability of child labour participation.
Child labour participation and child labour hours significantly hinder child
human capital formation in terms of education and health outcomes. Children
involved in hazardous nature of work and child labour hours are gender-specific
for boys. It is recommended that Ministry of Education and Ghana Education
Service through the Inspectorate Board should design truancy policy that would
be enforced on parents to reduce child participation in economic activities and
promote the free compulsory universal basic education policy. In addition, the
district assemblies must sensitize and educate the public on the hazardous
nature of child labour activities and the likely health implications on children’s
welfare.
