Abstract

The persistence of child labour is a barrier to the achievement of the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set for 2030 to eradicate poverty, provide decent quality learning for all children up to secondary school level, reduce inequality and create decent jobs. The study assessed the determinants of child labour among rural farming households in Kwara state, Nigeria. Primary data was obtained through multistage random sampling of 378 rural farming household heads from six (6) Local Government Areas (LGAs) out of 12 in Kwara State, Nigeria through field surveys. The tools of analysis were descriptive statistics, Foster-Greer-Thorbecke (FGT) index, Tobit regression model and Kernel density estimation. The result revealed that economic factors driven by poverty are the most important reasons for child labour. The result also showed that the bulk of child labour engaged in family farm labour (46.1%), domestic servants (10.0%) and hired labour (8.1%). The pooled results indicated that the determinants of child labour among rural households include age (0.302), marital status (0.087), adjusted household size (-0.219), cultural factor (0.007) and occupation (0.361) were statistically significant at different level of probability. The result obtained signified that household heads depend largely on child labour earning to supplement their income from agricultural production. Legislation must spell out the chores children could render to the family with special attention to age groups. Governments need to ensure that all children have access to basic education as a front-line response to child labour.

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