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The study examined the relationship between poverty and child labor in the Philippines by
region. It investigated how school attendance of working children relates to poverty incidence
covering the period 2008-2012. The study utilized data from the Bureau of Labor and Employment
Statistics (BLES) and the National Statistics Coordination Board (NSCB) to determine the
relationships among poverty, prevalence of child labor and the number of working children not
attending school. Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient was employed in the analysis.
Findings revealed that poverty incidence and prevalence of child labor were strongly correlated.
Similarly, poverty incidence strongly associates with the number of working children not attending
school. Poverty displaces these children from school. School children are enticed to participate in the
labor force because of short-term income opportunities. There is, however, no relationship between
prevalence of child labor and the number of working children not attending school. Empirical data
revealed that CARAGA, ARMM and Zamboanga have high percentages of poor individuals compared
with other regions of the country with large number of children not attending school. It is evident
that children have taken on the responsibility of augmenting the household incomes and of
providing the needs of their households. There is enough evidence that conclude that poverty
pushes children to participate in the labor force for them augment household income. It is
recommended that the government, aside from ensuring free basic education, should provide and
construct schools close to poor communities so that all children who cannot pay transportation costs
are able to attend school.
Keywords: Poverty incidence, child labor, working children, school attendance, correlation analysis,
Philippines
INTRODUCTION
developing countries, like the Philippines, Solving the issue on child labor
where many children are exposed to does not only benefit the children but also
impoverished living conditions and the businesses and industries. The huge
deficient social welfare. Whereas in the potential of the Philippines lies on its
West and advanced countries, these competent and skilled work force. The
conditions have been almost eliminated human capital is not performing optimal
and addressed. There are types of child productivity due to sub-standard quality
employment activities that are not education training makes the Philippine
considered harmful and, in fact, contribute labor force lose its world-famous
to children’s positive development since competent and skillful workers. The
they don’t stop children from attending Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWS) are the
school. These are activities involving country’s greatest “export,” for lack of
children helping their parents at home on better term, to the world, and their
domestic chores, and helping out in the remittances positively stimulate the
family business during holidays and economy. Business, both foreign and
vacations. domestic, will lose the potential
productivity and efficiency rendered by a
Education and poverty alleviation skillful Filipino labor force. Foregoing this
are among the government’s top priorities. issue creates opportunities for other Asian
Various international agencies have countries with known low labor cost
provided funding and aid, whether they’re environment such as Vietnam and
monetary or in-kind, to the country in Bangladesh to catch up and capture
order to implement projects that will cater businesses, such as business process
to education and poverty alleviation, outsourcing (BPO) and manufacturing
among other issues. As such, child labor is firms, which could have continued to grow
one of the pressing issues that needs to be in the country. Child labor is a threat to
addressed the soonest possible time. This the long-term business atmosphere in the
issue naturally co-exists and goes together country.
with poverty. What makes this issue worse
is the vulnerability of children to further The cost of education is often
neglect. The inability of these children to considered to be hindrance in getting the
accumulate knowledge might result in a children in the school and out of
future Filipino labor force that is deficient workplaces. Even if there are public
in skills and competencies. The global scale schools, more often than not, families
of commerce and trade, and the intense would still have to shell out considerable
competition for cost efficiency and amounts for their children’s transportation,
productivity require higher skill set, food and school supplies. Returns
competencies and performance, causing a achieved by educating the children may be
threat to the future of the Filipino labor too low relative to the opportunity costs of
force, and, in turn, the businesses, if such such education whereby future net returns
child labor issue is left unattended. of education are considered to be lower
than the wages offered in the market
(Aldaba, Lanzona and Tamangan, 2004).
The lack of foresight on the endogenous
116
CNU Journal of Higher Education, Volume 8 (2014)
growth theory, given the lack of education thirds” of growth performance (Hamid and
of the household head, leads to using Pichler, 2011) among the world’s advance
children as “hedge against risk and economies. Several studies (Kendrick,
uncertainty (Jacoby and Skofias, as cited in 1956; Denison, 1967; Baumol, 1986;
Aldaba, Lanzona and Tamangan, 2004). Romer, 1990; Rebelo, 1991) revealed
parallel findings with Hamid and Pichler
This study is anchored on the (2011) in this respect. It is argued that
endogenous growth theory advocated by human capital accumulation contributes to
Lucas (1988) in his third economic the positive relationships between scale
development model which puts emphasis and productivity, and this prevails over the
on human capital investment through effect of diminishing returns (Hamid and
schooling to attain economic development. Pichler, 2011).
In this essence, the government needs to Consistent with this theory,
invest in the education of its human capital education is an action of investment on the
for economic development to come by. part of both the family and the
Human capital is defined to be the “stock government to build and increase the
of competencies, knowledge, habits, social human capital, henceforth, the value of the
and personality attributes, children. When children accumulate
including creativity, cognitive abilities, cognitive abilities, competencies and
embodied in the ability to perform labor so knowledge, they are bound to render
as to pro-duce economic value” (Simkovic, output of great economic value upon their
2013). The government plays an integral participation in the labor force. The earlier
role to deliver and provide quality children stop in accumulating human
education environment as long run capital, the lesser of the cognitive abilities,
economic investment on its human capital competencies and knowledge they get. The
resource beginning from children to adult impact of endogenous growth to the future
education mechanisms. of the Filipino labor force is often
Essentially, Romer (as cited in overlooked, with education always the first
Hamid and Pichler, 2011) identified other casualty in times of crises.
determinants of endogenous growth which
include capital, labor and technology level This study attempted to examine
index with human capital as the most and explain the trend and association
fundamentals for endogenous growth between poverty and child labor in the
model. Further, the theory holds that Philippines from 2008 to 2012 by region.
human capital contributes about “two Specifically, the study determined the
117
Fernandez and Abocejo: Child Labor, Poverty and School Attendance: Evidences
For this paper, the household data Source: BLES-CLS and NSCB databases
refer to “the characteristics of the Figure 2. Percentage of working children
population residing in private households ages 5-17 years by region, 2008-
2012.
121
Fernandez and Abocejo: Child Labor, Poverty and School Attendance: Evidences
minimizing their parents’ dependence on the poverty threshold. These are the
children for income generation. regions with high living standards, high
literacy rates and higher wage standards.
Figure 4 indicates the percentage They are also the regions with high costs of
of population living within the poverty living since they are within and around the
threshold. CARAGA, ARMM and highly urbanized Metro Manila. Addressing
Zamboanga Region (Region IX) have the the problem of education services delivery
highest percentages of poor individuals in in these regions is tricky because the
the country. Apparently, ARMM and government must deal with the biggest gap
Zamboanga Regions, particularly of education expenditures. Large and
Maguindanao, Basilan, Sulu and Lanao del expensive schools are found in these
Sur, have always been the battleground of regions, while they are also a huge number
war and armed conflicts between the Moro of poor children in these areas such that
rebels and the government. In there is a need for a highly “customized”
Maguindanao, rampant corruption education service delivery ensuring that
manifests a wide gap of economic the poor children get the government
conditions among the ruling class and the subsidy, not those who only claim to be
poor residents. It is noted that ARMM is poor.
marred by conflicts
among warring political Table 2. Association between variables using Pearson r
clans. All these factors Variable Pearson r P-Value
put behind economic Poverty and Working Children Not
development in these 0.567** 0.000
Attending School
areas to low priorities Poverty and Working Children 0.667** 0.000
which imply that Working Children and Working
resolving political 0.142ns 0.194
Children Not Attending School
conflicts gets more ** - highly correlated at α= 0.01
bearing. In effect, ns
– not significantly correlated
productive economic
initiatives and educational development
endeavors are neglected and left to The study found that the
stagnate. The frequent turnover of local percentage of the population within the
government elected officials creates poverty threshold is strongly associated the
changes in local government percentage of working children and those
administration prohibiting sustained focus not attending school (Table 2). The
of poverty alleviation programs. In effect, significant correlation in Table 2 suggest
the national government finds it difficult to that when there’s higher poverty
intervene in the dominating cultural and incidence, there is also a high percentage
political behavior in the rather sensitive of child labor (Pearson r = 0.667, P-value =
region of ARMMM. 0.000) and high percentage of working
children not attending school (Pearson r =
Meanwhile, the NCR, CALABARZON 0.567, P-value = 0.000). This confirms the
(Region IV-A) and Central Luzon (Region III) research study hypothesis of strong
hold the lowest percentages of Filipinos in relationship between poverty and child
123
Fernandez and Abocejo: Child Labor, Poverty and School Attendance: Evidences
depth studies on working children can also Department of Labor and Employment
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