Ghana - Ghana Child Labour Survey - 2001

v1.1:Edited data for internal use.

2001-03

The dataset was further cleaned and checked for consistencies and tabulation. Version 1is the raw data.

The Ghana Child Labour Survey (GCLS) field data collection took place in January-February 2001, after two months of preparatory activities that included a pretest of instruments and methodology.

Socio-Demographic Characteristics of Household Population

The 9889 households interviewed contained 47,955 persons, with a sex ratio of 96.7. About one-fifth of the population is made up of household heads, while children constitute about a half (49.7%); children aged 5-17, in comparison, make up 35.5 percent of the population. The rural areas make up 60.3 percent of the population. Information collected on school attendance shows that nearly the same proportion of the sample population had never attended school (30.8%), as were those currently in school (34.4%) or had attended school in the past (34.8%). Marked disparities existed in school attendance at the regional level, with over 60 percent of the sample population in the three northern regions having never gone to school.

The economically active persons constituted 57.5 percent of the sample, the majority of whom were in agriculture/forestry/fishing (51.1%), followed by sales workers (16.9%). The pattern applied to all regions, except Greater Accra where sales workers predominated. Majority of the economically active population were self-employed, own account workers (54.7%), followed by unpaid family workers (29.8%). Over 90 percent of population worked in the informal sector.

Households in the country derive much of their income from self-employment in agricultural activities (49.1%); self-employment in non-agricultural activities accounts for 28.0 percent, while regular wage employment makes up 14.0 percent. With the exception of Greater Accra, agriculture is the major source of income for households in all the regions.

Socio-Demographic Characteristics of Children aged 5-17

The number of children aged 5-17 is estimated by the survey to be about 6.4 million (6,361,111). Children aged 5-9 years constitute 41.8 percent (2,657,258); the 10-14 age group is 39.5 percent (2,515,463) while the 15-17 age group is 18.7 percent (1,188,390). Males constitute 52.9 percent of the 5-17 age group; indeed, there are more boys than girls in each of the three age groups. Most of the children live in rural areas (62.3%).

Ashanti Region has the largest share (15.5%) of the children, followed by Northern (14.0%) and Greater Accra (11.7%). Variations in regional distribution of children (5-17) from the 2000 census are attributable mainly to differences in the average household sizes for the various regions. The predominant ethnic groups of the children are Akans (44.3%) and Mole-Dagbani (18.7%).

Over three quarters (76.5%) of the children are attending school, while 17.6 percent have never attended school. With the exception of the three northern regions, more than 80 percent of the children in all the other regions are attending school. Nearly half (46.5%) of the children in the Northern Region have never attended school. Slightly higher proportion of males in all regions are attending school, compared with females.

The three major reasons for children never attending school are affordability (44.2%), distance from school (18.4%) and lack of interest in schooling (17.1%). These reasons apply to both males and females.

The highest level of schooling attained by majority of the children is primary (56.1%), which is what is expected of the age group. The survey shows that only 2.0 percent of the children are receiving training, with males being in fitting/mechanics and carpentry and females in dress making, catering/bakery and hairdressing. About 20 percent of the children are neither schooling nor receiving any training.

Background information on parents indicates that neither death nor divorce/ separation of parents are significant factors for child labour. Virtually all the children (99.7%) reported that both parents were working. Majority of the parents were self-employed.

Activities of Children

Economic Activity

Information collected indicates that 2,474,545 children were engaged in usual economic activity, which is about 2 in every 5 children aged 5-17 years. Half of the rural children and about one fifth of the urban children were in economic activity. About 40 percent of working children (39.8%) worked for more than 6 months. More than a half of the children in Greater Accra, Central and Eastern regions worked for more than 6 months out of the year.

Estimates indicate that 1,590,765 children were attending school while working, which is 64.3 percent of children engaged in usual economic activity.

With respect to current economic activity, 31.3 percent (or 1,984,107) of the children aged 5-17 years were estimated to engage in economic activity during the 7 days preceding the interview; the proportion increased with age. A higher proportion of children in rural areas (39.7%) are more likely to engage in economic activity than urban children (17.6%).

About two-thirds of the children (68.7%) did no work; 80.5 percent of these were full-time students. Over 90 percent of children in urban areas did no work because they were attending school, compared to 71.7 percent in rural areas.

Nature and Conditions of Work

About 57 percent (1,128,072) of the working children were engaged in agriculture/forestry/fishing, while 21 percent worked as hawkers and street vendors, selling iced water, food and other items. Eleven percent engaged in general labourer work, such as washing of cars, fetching firewood and water, pushing trucks (males), and carrying goods as porters (mainly females). It is estimated that 1,338,794 of the working children were part-time workers. About a third were in full-time and permanent employment.

A significant proportion (88.0%) of the working children were unpaid family workers, and apprentices, while 5.9 percent were own-account workers (or self-employed). About 70 percent (68.7%) of the children worked between two and five hours a day.

Over a third of the children (36.7%) were paid daily, while 28.5 percent were on piece rate. Over 80 percent received payment themselves.

Most working children (60%) were satisfied with their jobs. Those who were not satisfied reported that their work was too tiring or wages and earnings were too low.

Non-economic activity

About 90 percent of the children engage in housekeeping activities on a regular basis. There are slight rural (92.0%) and urban (86%) and regional variations. On average, 73 percent of the children spend less than 3 hours a day on household chores. The older the child, the more time he/she spends on household chores. Only about one percent of the children spend more than 7 hours a day on household chores. Gender of the head of household does not affect children's involvement in household chores. Only about 5 percent of the children were reported by parents to have been idle, with the reason that either the child was too young to work or sick.

Health and Safety

According to parents, 29.4 percent of the children had suffered injuries, compared to 22.7 percent reported by the children themselves. More than half of the injuries occurred at home and were mostly cuts and wounds. About a quarter of the children who were injured at the work place worked in agriculture. The injuries, in a great number of cases (40.0%), were not serious and did not require any medical treatment, while 38.6 percent were treated and discharged.

Parents Perception and Preferences

According to parents of 93 percent of the children, child work is basically to contribute to the economic welfare of households; either to supplement household income (58.8%) or help in household enterprises (34.2%). Parents of 44 percent of the children reported that household living standards would fall and household enterprises could not operate in 21 percent of the cases, if the children did not work. About 30 percent of children did not need to work as household welfare would not be affected.

If parents had the choice they would prefer their children to be either schooling or in training and to complete their education. Most of the children themselves (70.3%) also preferred to go to school or complete their education before starting work. Parents' and children's preferences were thus different from what the children were actually doing. This suggests that some policy measure could help enroll and keep more children in the classroom as expected of their age group.

STREET CHILDREN SURVEY

Socio-Demographic Characteristics

Areas throughout the country, identified as sleeping places of street children, were purposely selected for the survey. A total of 2,314 street children were interviewed, out of whom 52.4 percent were females. The 15-17 age group constituted 50.1 percent of the total number. The highest proportion (56.6%) of the females was in the 10-14 age group, while that of the males (50.1%) was in the 15-17 age group. Greater Accra Region had the highest proportion (49.7%) of the street children, followed by Ashanti with 26.5 percent. Street children as a phenomenon, is virtually absent in the Upper West Region.

The street children were predominantly of Mole-Dagbani (40.2%) and Akan (32.2%) ethnic origins. Akans formed the greater proportion (53.4%) of male street children, while Mole-Dagbon made up 63.1 percent of the females. Only about 2 percent of the street children were married, with almost all of them being females.

School Attendance

A sizeable proportion of the street children (45.7%) had never attended school; only 11.2 percent (258) were attending school at the time of the survey. Of the 995 children who had attended school in the past, only 15.5 percent completed school. The rest had dropped out of school for one reason or the other, the major reason being the problem of affordability (60.9%). More than half (51.8%) of those attending school missed school for at least 3 days, while 35.8 percent missed school for the entire one week preceding the survey. The highest level of education attained by a large proportion of the children (34.5%) is primary school, with the proportion declining to 16.3 percent for junior secondary school. About 70 percent of the children aged 15-17 could neither read nor write; a high proportion were females.

Parents Background

The survey indicates that both parents of over three quarters (78.4%) of the street children were alive, while an additional 18.6 percent had either mother or father alive. Over 60 percent of the children reported that their parents were still married to each other and were working.

Economic Activity

Street children need to work in order to survive on the street. Almost all the street children (98.1%) had engaged in economic activity within the last 12 months, while 96.6 percent had engaged in economic activity a week before the interview. (This is significantly higher than the 40% for usual economic activity and 31% current economic activity for children in households).

Majority of the street children (81.8%) reported that their work was demanding. Seventy-two percent of the street children who combined work with schooling reported that work affected their studies (much higher than the 25% for children in households). Over a quarter of the children (26.5%) had permanent jobs, while more than 70 percent were temporary workers. A large proportion (62.8%) was engaged as general labourers working as truck pushers and porters; 16.7 percent were sales workers.

Health and Safety

Majority (53.5%) of the street children had sustained some injury or illness in the form of cuts and wounds (this contrasts with the proportion of about 29% for children in households).

The major threats faced by children on the street come from harassment from the police and metropolitan officials as well as the bigger boys/girls on the street. Three out of every five of the street children mentioned marijuana (wee) as the illicit drug commonly found on the street. Only 3 percent of the children admitted taking any illicit drug.

Less than 10 percent of the children admitted they had boy/girl friends; the older children were more likely to be in a sexual relationship. While over 80 percent of the children had heard about HIV/AIDS (older children were even more aware), less than 48 percent of the children knew about other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). About 30 percent of the children knew about condoms as a means of protection; an additional 29 percent cited abstinence as protection against STDs.

The children cited free education (44%), free training (34%) and better jobs (19%) as the forms of government assistance that could improve their conditions.

Sample survey data [ssd]

Household

Street Children