Fatoumata, a young girl in Mali, does more than just act like a kid. She helps her mother run the household by pounding millet for the family’s meals, cares for the family’s chickens and goats, sells goods at the market, and works in her family’s fields, in addition to attending school. Fatoumata represents the critical role children play in preserving family livelihoods in agriculture, in Mali as well as in other developing countries. Widespread variation in how child labor is measured both within and across countries may give false policy signals concerning children’s welfare. The recent IFPRI discussion paper, “Measuring Child Labor: Comparisons between Hours and Subjective Measures,” investigates the methods through which children’s outcomes are measured using a time allocation game that is played with children to find out directly from them how much time they spend at work, at school, and in leisure activities. The results of this methodological approach show that adult respondents produce uniformly lower results of children’s time allocated to work and school the that children’s own subjective responses. The research also investigates whether the measurement error caused by asking either children or adults about child labor causes us to re-evaluate the importance of certain determinants of child labor. Improved measurement of child labor in agricultural settings has implications on research, policy, and ultimately Fatoumata.

To read the paper: http://www.ifpri.org/publication/measuring-child-labor