Child Labour and Human Capital Formation in the Central Region of Ghana

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.