Poverty and Work Migration of children in Rural Nepal (A Study of Five Villages of Nuwakot District)

Abstract

Theoretical Ground The incidence of child labour migration was deeply embedded with the process ofindustrial revolution of today’s developed countries as many children moved on theirown or with families to cities to work in the factories, mines and textile mills.Structuralists argue that child labour migration prevails most in the pre-capitalistsocieties mainly because, in these societies, role ofschooling of children is minimal. Theadvocates of survival strategy, on the other hand, claim that children in the poorestfamilies are family assets and are sent to work to the cities to add family income whenthe other members of the households fail to find jobs. Most of the today’s developingsocieties including Nepal are passing through pre-capitalist mode of production and inthese societies, incidence of household poverty and deprivation, weak schooling systemand incidence of child labour migrationcontinues to be a widespread phenomenon. Poverty argument appears to be most powerful argument for child labour migration ashousehold poverty pushes many children out of home for work. Historically unequaldistribution pattern of resources/opportunities, ethnic and gender based discriminatorypractices and inequality born by the recent development efforts are the major causes ofpoverty/deprivation of rural families in Nepal. The Context Past studies reveal that 1.6 per of total children aged 5-17 yearswere child labourers in1997 and it is about 1.7 per cent in the five villages of Nuwakot district in 1998. Migrantchildren go on their own or brought to the cities mostly by their parents, relatives, orneighbours. Migrant children are deprived of parental love, care and education, and arehighly vulnerable to exploitation and abuse in the place of work. The issue of child labour migration has not got serious attention in Nepal in terms ofboth research and policy agenda. Most studies conducted so far focus on the child laboursituation in the destination and are not sufficient to understand interplay of the povertyand deprivation related factors at the place of origin. The present study focuses on thedynamics of child labour migration in the origin with a view to examine characteristicsof household poverty/deprivation, child labour migration and differentials of child labourmigration according to poverty/deprivation related factors. It also examines the relativeimportance of poverty/deprivation factors in explaining child labour migration. Five villages of Nuwakot district are chosen as study areas where, with the evidence ofhigh incidence of child labour migration, ABC/Nepal, Kathmandu implemented actionprogramme to prevent child migration during the late 90s. Required information wasobtained from primary as well as secondary sources. Primary data were collected throughsurvey of 479 households without child labour migration in the year 2000. The presentstudy has also used data generated by ABC/Nepal exclusively for households with childlabour migration. Descriptive as well as advanced statistical methods such as zero-ordercorrelation analysis and logistic regression analysis have been applied to analyze data.Altogether 22 hypotheses have been formulated to examine the effect of selectedpredictor variables on household poverty and deprivation on child labour migration. Thepredictor variables represented economic and quality of life related variables, socialvariables, child deprivation variables and demographic variables. The general hypothesisof this study is that the incidence of child labour migration is higher among moredeprived groups than among less deprived groups of households. Characteristics of Child Labour Migration Altogether six per cent of households have child labour migration in the study area. Ofthe total children aged 5-17 years, 1.7 per cent migrated for work, 2.4 per cent amongmale and 1 per cent among female children. Female children migrate mostly for domesticwork atan early age by twice the magnitude for male children. Most of the migrant childlabourers (87%) migrate to Kathmandu valley in unskilled work like dish/washing inhotel/restaurants, cleaning and domestic chores. About 33 per cent of the children havemigrated with the influence of their relatives and many of them with false promises. Thehill ethnic group constituted 38.1 per cent of the total migrant child labourers. Some families do not know the whereabouts of some of the children. Poor economiccondition of the family, repayment of debt, economic insufficiency, hope for futureimprovement of economic condition of family, and hope of supplementing familyincome are the most frequently cited reasons for work migration of children. Characteristics of Poverty and Deprivation among Families of Child Labourers Households with child labour migration are generally poor with limited assets andincome, high level of illiteracy (59%) and child deprivation. Poverty and deprivation inthe study areas is mainly associated with low agricultural productivity, lack of alternativesources of income, lack of utilization of development potentials, and lack/failure ofpoverty-focused programme. Differentials in Child Labour Migration The condition of poverty and deprivationbrings significant variation in the incidence ofchild labour migration according to economic, social and child deprivation conditions ofchildren. The incidence of child labour migration for most of the less deprived group ofchildren is around 2 per cent or less as compared to 5-9 per cent for the more deprivedgroups and even 12 per cent for Dalit children and 22 per cent for the children whobelong to landless households. The incidence of child labour migration is very highamong Dalit children who have work participation at home (20.0%) as compared to just5 per cent among those who belong to Brahmin/Chhetri households. Migrant childlabourers constituted 10-16 per cent among the most deprived group. Determining the Role of Predictor Variables: Hypothesis and Model Testing The zero order correlation analysis between child labour migration and selectedeconomic and quality of life, social, child deprivation and demographic variables showsthat incidence of child labour migration is negatively correlatedwith the conditions ofless deprivation: sufficiency of the household, medium/large size of landholding,nonagricultural sources of income, ownership of radio, possession of televisionelectricity and literacy of household heads. Logistic regression analysis further showsthat the incidence of child labour migration significantly increases with increase in thecondition of deprivation. Stepwise regression analysis demonstrated that work participation is the most importantfactor for explaining child labour migration and captures effects of other economic,social and child deprivation variables. Other important variables explaining child labourmigration are ownership of radio, landownership, gender, age, and indebtedness. Jointeffect of economic sufficiency and indebtedness has much higher effect than the effect ofwork participation on child labour migration. Work participation appears the secondmost important variable affecting child labour migration when joint effects are alsoconsidered. Conclusions The incidence of child labour migration is deeply embeded with the process ofsocioeconomic transformation. It generally high in pre-capitalist societies in whichpoverty and deprivation is a widespread phenomenon. It is also a survival strategy of thepoor families. The incidence of child labour migration is strongly associated withhousehold’s condition of poverty and deprivation. However, it is more stronglyassociated with economic poverty and deprivation factors than the social factors.Families of migrant child labourers in Nepal are economically marginalized and mostdeprived groups of society. Therefore, economic poverty is the strongest indicator ofchild labour migration in rural Nepal. Poverty and deprivation is a general argument, and the present study more specificallyreveals that an interaction between economic deficiency and indebtedness (due toeconomic deficiency) is the most important indicator of economic poverty anddeprivation in explaining children labour migration. This study further suggests thatchild deprivation factor specifically “children’s work participation at home”, as a singledeterminant is another important factor in explaining child labour migration in ruralNepal. This implies that “working children” more likely to migrate for work than theothers. The present study reveals a special mechanism that household poverty and deprivationdetermines work participation of children, and, in turn, work participation determinesincidence of child labour migration. The estimate of net effect shows that the effect ofother poverty and deprivation variables decreases with increase in the effect of workparticipation variable. With this, it is concluded that work participation of childrencaptures effect of most of the poverty and deprivation related factors in affecting childlabour migration. The effect of school attendance of children is not significant for theprevention of child labour migration mainly because of weak educational system andhousehold poverty. School attendance of children, however, is effective if incidence ofwork is not associated with school attendance of children.