Towards statistical standards for children's non economic work: a discussion based on household survey data

Evaluation of redefining the concept of economically active children

By: Guarcello L, Lyon S, Rosati FC & Valdivia C
Published by: Understanding Children's Work (UCW), Innocenti Research Centre , 2005
Via: Eldis

This study forms part of a broader research effort directed towards arriving eventually at an internationally acceptable consensus on the statistical definition of child labour. It looks specifically at children’s non-market activity, its classification (i.e., economic or non-economic), its impact on health and education outcomes, and at some of the issues linked to the inclusion of non-market activity in the definition of child labour. The study should be seen as an initial contribution to the discussion, aimed at raising key measurement questions requiring further investigation and deliberation.

The study evaluated the impact and feasibility of redefining the concept of "economically active children" on the basis of an accurate separation between nonmarket activities that fall into the SNA production boundary and non-market activities that do not. The findings show that the inclusion of non-market economic activities substantially increases the numbers of economically-active children, and substantially reduces the group of children that is performing non-economic work exclusively, and therefore potentially left out of child labour estimates.