Peer-reviewed article
Prevalence and correlates of child labour in five low-income countries: a descriptive study based on UNICEF Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys 6 (MICS6).
Spencer N, Gunnlaugsson G, Raman S ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study analysed child labour data from UNICEF surveys across five low-income African countries. Nearly half of all children aged 5-17 years were engaged in some form of labour, with over one-third exposed to hazardous conditions. Rural children, poorer children, and those aged 12-17 were significantly more likely to work. The findings highlight that child labour remains widespread and threatens children's health and development in these countries.
Key points
- 42% of 140,598 children aged 5-17 years across the five countries were engaged in child labour
- 35.3% of working children were exposed to hazardous conditions
- Rural children were almost twice as likely to work as urban children (47.5% vs 25.6%)
- Children in the poorest wealth quintile were nearly twice as likely to work as those in the wealthiest (46.9% vs 23.7%)
- Adolescents aged 12-14 had the highest prevalence of child labour at 61.1%
Limitations
This is a descriptive study reporting prevalence only; it does not establish causality between the identified correlates and child labour. The surveys did not collect data on health outcomes or wellbeing of working children, limiting understanding of the actual harms experienced.
Abstract
Background The Convention on the Rights of the Child states that children need to be protected from 'any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child's education, or to be harmful to the child's health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development'. We aimed to determine the prevalence and correlates of child labour in five low-income African countries using the sixth wave of UNICEF Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS6). Methods Data on child labour, reported by the household respondent for a randomly selected child (5-17 years), were extracted from MICS6 reports from Chad, Guinea Bissau, Malawi, Sierra Leone and Togo. Prevalence rates were extracted from three categories of child labour (household chores, economic activity and hazardous work) stratified by gender, age, wealth and residence. Results 140 598 children aged 5-17 years (61.2% 5-11; 22.0% 12-14; 16.8% 15-17) were included in the reports; 59 090 (42%) were engaged in child labour. The highest proportion of child labourers by age was 12-14 years old (61.1%) followed by 15-17 years old (51.1%) and 5-11 years old (36.1%). There were differences between countries, with Chad having the highest proportion of working children. Gender differences in working were limited (43.9% boys vs 40.3% girls); rural children were almost twice as likely to be working compared with urban children (47.5% rural vs 25.6% urban) as were children in the poorest quintile compared with those in the wealthiest quintile (46.9% vs 23.7%). Over a third (35.3%) of working children were exposed to hazardous conditions. Older, male, rural or poor children were over-represented among those in hazardous work. Conclusions Almost half of all children in these five sub-Saharan African countries are engaged in labour, of which one-third are in hazardous work. MICS6 surveys do not report on working children's health; however, working puts their health and development at risk.