Parental Time Poverty, Child Work and School Attendance in Ghana

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between parental time poverty, child work, and school attendance in Ghana using data from the sixth and seventh rounds of the Ghana Living Standard Survey (GLSS6 and GLSS7). Results of the analysis indicate an increasing decline in child enrolment in public schools (from 9% to 6%) among time poor household heads. In addition, parental time poverty increases children’s walking hours to and from school and private school enrolment. We observed heterogeneity of parental time poverty on child work in relation to the location of households and gender disaggregation. Child work and school attendance-reducing effect of parental time poverty is mainly prevalent among male children but mixed for location. Our result is robust to the alternative estimation method of addressing endogeneity and further shows that household income is the primary channel through which time poverty influences child work and school attendance.