Education of Disadvantaged Children in OIC:
The Key to Escape from Poverty
138
Child labour and gender: As seen earlier, the number one reason for dropping out of school is
due to work because the household is in need of income, thus poverty is a strong barrier to access
to schooling via child labour. There is therefore a strong link between low access to school and
child labour, with differential gender impact. For many families in Jordan, women’s work is
restricted to the household and as such children may need to contribute financially, especially if
the male head of the household is deceased or unable to work362.
Gender. As seen i bove, for children aged 6-15, the enrolment rate for boys not engaged
in labour is 97.5% but drops significantly down to 56% for boys engaged in labour.
While child labour negatively affects the enrolment rates for working girls, the enrolment rate still
remains high at 91% i.e. 35 percentage points higher than the enrolment rates of working boys.
The differential impact of gender on enrolment rates of children engaged in labour decreases for
older children: both boys and girls aged 16-17 are very negatively impacted by engagement in
labour.
For the 16-17 age group, only 30% of girls engaged in labour are enrolled versus 23.2% of boys
i.e. only around 1 in 3 ‘working’ girls are still in school and only 1 in 5 ‘working’ boys.
The link between boys’ labour and its consequent high negative impact on enrolment rates for 6-
15 year olds (and especially for 16-17) could be due to a combination of the following: (i) labour
is usually outside the home and these external job demands may lead to high absenteeism rates
(eventually drop out or not able to pass the tests) or having to drop school altogether for a full
time job. This work is needed to contribute financially to their family’s earning power or to
provide for their new family (in case of early marriage). As a matter of fact, the NCFA 2010
report363 indicates that the biggest reason for child labour is to earn additional income for their
family (38 per cent) with 87% of the children satisfied with their work. The two largest areas of
employment for children are automobile repairs (36%) and agriculture (27%).
362 UNICEF (2014)
363 UNICEF (2014)
Table 20 School enrolment rates based on gender and labour force participation
Work situation Age and Gender
Ages 6-15 Ages 16-17
Male Female Male Female
Enrolled children 96.7 97.6 81.1 85.4
Enrolled children (not
working)
97.5 97.6 88.7 85.8
Enrolled children (working) 55.9 91.0 23.2 30.0
Source: NCFA (2012)