IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pid/journl/v59y2020i3p335-355.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Parents’ Perception of Education and Choice of Childhood Activities: Evidence from Pakistan

Author

Listed:
  • Lubna Naz

    (Department of Economics, University of Karachi, Karachi.)

  • Abdul Salam Lodhi

    (Balochistan University of Information Technology, Engineering and Management Sciences, Quetta.)

  • Daniel W. Tsegai

    (United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), Bonn, Germany.)

Abstract

We investigate parents’ perceptions of various educational systems and their impact on the decision to either send their children to school, or engage them in other childhood activities. Childhood activities are categorised as follows: secular schooling, religious (nonsecular schooling), child labour, child labour combined with secular schooling, and leisure (inactivity). The paper uses the household survey data of 2,496 children, 963 households, and 40 villages in Pakistan. A Multinomial Probit Model analysed the impact of various socioeconomic variables on the likelihood of choosing an activity for children. Results indicate that the following factors influence the parents’ decisions in selection of activities for their children: the parents’ level of education, mother’s relative authority in household decisions, degree of religiosity of the head of household, beliefs in tribal norms, household income, and proximity to the school. The findings provide insignificant evidence to support the “luxury axiom” hypothesis that children only work when their families are unable to meet their basic needs.

Suggested Citation

  • Lubna Naz & Abdul Salam Lodhi & Daniel W. Tsegai, 2020. "Parents’ Perception of Education and Choice of Childhood Activities: Evidence from Pakistan," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 59(3), pages 335-355.
    • Handle: RePEc:pid:journl:v:59:y:2020:i:3:p:335-355
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://pide.org.pk/pdfpdr/2020/335-355.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Handa, Sudhanshu, 1996. "Maternal Education and Child Attainment in Jamaica: Testing the Bargaining Power Hypothesis," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 58(1), pages 119-137, February.
    2. M. Niaz Asadullah & Rupa Chakrabarti & Nazmul Chaudhury, 2015. "What Determines Religious School Choice? Theory And Evidence From Rural Bangladesh," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 67(2), pages 186-207, April.
    3. Barro, Robert J, 1974. "Are Government Bonds Net Wealth?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(6), pages 1095-1117, Nov.-Dec..
    4. Eric V. Edmonds & Nina Pavcnik & Petia Topalova, 2010. "Trade Adjustment and Human Capital Investments: Evidence from Indian Tariff Reform," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 42-75, October.
    5. Hou, Xiaohui, 2009. "Wealth: Crucial but Not Sufficient Evidence from Pakistan on Economic Growth, Child Labor, and Schooling," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4831, The World Bank.
    6. Mark R. Rosenzweig & Kenneth I. Wolpin, 1985. "Specific Experience, Household Structure, and Intergenerational Transfers: Farm Family Land and Labor Arrangements in Developing Countries," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 100(Supplemen), pages 961-987.
    7. Paul A. Samuelson, 1958. "An Exact Consumption-Loan Model of Interest with or without the Social Contrivance of Money," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 66(6), pages 467-467.
    8. Christian Dustmann, 2004. "Parental background, secondary school track choice, and wages," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 56(2), pages 209-230, April.
    9. Huisman, Janine & Smits, Jeroen, 2009. "Effects of Household- and District-Level Factors on Primary School Enrollment in 30 Developing Countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 179-193, January.
    10. André Portela Souza, 2007. "Child Labor, School Attendance, and Intrahousehold Gender Bias in Brazil," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 21(2), pages 301-316, March.
    11. T. Paul Schultz & John A. Strauss (ed.), 2008. "Handbook of Development Economics," Handbook of Development Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 4, number 5.
    12. Handa, Sudhanshu, 1994. "Gender, headship and intrahousehold resource allocation," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 22(10), pages 1535-1547, October.
    13. Goulart, Pedro & Bedi, Arjun S., 2008. "Child labour and educational success in Portugal," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 575-587, October.
    14. Theodore W. Schultz, 1960. "Capital Formation by Education," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 68(6), pages 571-571.
    15. Santos, Manon Domingues Dos & Wolff, François-Charles, 2011. "Human capital background and the educational attainment of second-generation immigrants in France," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 1085-1096, October.
    16. Kaushik Basu & Zafiris Tzannatos, 2003. "The Global Child Labor Problem: What Do We Know and What Can We Do?," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 17(2), pages 147-173, December.
    17. Laurence R. Iannaccone, 1998. "Introduction to the Economics of Religion," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(3), pages 1465-1495, September.
    18. David M. Brasington, 2002. "The Demand for Local Public Goods: The Case of Public School Quality," Public Finance Review, , vol. 30(3), pages 163-187, May.
    19. Alderman, Harold & Kim, Jooseop & Orazem, Peter F., 2003. "Design, evaluation, and sustainability of private schools for the poor: the Pakistan urban and rural fellowship school experiments," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 265-274, June.
    20. Dessy, Sylvain E. & Pallage, Stephane, 2001. "Child labor and coordination failures," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 469-476, August.
    21. Basu, Kaushik & Van, Pham Hoang, 1998. "The Economics of Child Labor," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(3), pages 412-427, June.
    22. Xiaohui Hou, 2010. "Wealth: Crucial but Not Sufficient - Evidence from Pakistan on Economic Growth, Child Labour and Schooling," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(3), pages 439-465.
    23. Ersado, Lire, 2005. "Child Labor and Schooling Decisions in Urban and Rural Areas: Comparative Evidence from Nepal, Peru, and Zimbabwe," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 455-480, March.
    24. Kate L. Antonovics & Arthur S. Goldberger, 2005. "Does Increasing Women's Schooling Raise the Schooling of the Next Generation? Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(5), pages 1738-1744, December.
    25. Naushin Mahmood, 2011. "The Demographic Dividend: Effects of Population Change on School Education in Pakistan," PIDE-Working Papers 2011:68, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics.
    26. Dickson, Matt & Harmon, Colm, 2011. "Economic returns to education: What We Know, What We Don’t Know, and Where We Are Going—Some brief pointers," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 1118-1122.
    27. Cigno, Alessandro & Rosati, Furio Camillo, 2005. "The Economics of Child Labour," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199264452.
    28. van de Walle, Dominique & Gunewardena, Dileni, 2001. "Sources of ethnic inequality in Viet Nam," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 177-207, June.
    29. Tansel, Aysit, 2002. "Determinants of school attainment of boys and girls in Turkey: individual, household and community factors," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(5), pages 455-470, October.
    30. David Brasington & Don Haurin, 2005. "The Demand for Educational Quality: Comparing Estimates from a Median Voter Model with those from an Almost Ideal Demand System," Departmental Working Papers 2005-16, Department of Economics, Louisiana State University.
    31. Amin, Shahina & Quayes, Shakil & Rives, Janet M., 2006. "Market work and household work as deterrents to schooling in Bangladesh," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 34(7), pages 1271-1286, July.
    32. Laurence R. Iannaccone, 1998. "Corrigenda [Introduction to the Economics of Religion]," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(4), pages 1941-1941, December.
    33. Alderman, Harold & King, Elizabeth M., 1998. "Gender differences in parental investment in education," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 453-468, December.
    34. Diganta Mukherjee & Saswati Das, 2008. "Role of Parental Education in Schooling and Child Labour Decision: Urban India in the Last Decade," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 89(2), pages 305-322, November.
    35. Monazza Aslam, 2009. "Education Gender Gaps in Pakistan: Is the Labor Market to Blame?," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 57(4), pages 747-784, July.
    36. Stair, Anthony & Rephann, Terance J. & Heberling, Matt, 2006. "Demand for public education: Evidence from a rural school district," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 521-531, October.
    37. Webbink, Ellen & Smits, Jeroen & de Jong, Eelke, 2012. "Hidden Child Labor: Determinants of Housework and Family Business Work of Children in 16 Developing Countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 631-642.
    38. Behrman, Jere R & Birdsall, Nancy, 1983. "The Quality of Schooling: Quantity Alone is Misleading," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(5), pages 928-946, December.
    39. Patrick M. Emerson & Shawn D. Knabb, 2006. "Opportunity, Inequality and the Intergenerational Transmission of Child Labour," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 73(291), pages 413-434, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lodhi, Abdul Salam & Tsegai, Daniel W. & Gerber, Nicolas, 2011. "Determinants of participation in child’s education and alternative activities in Pakistan," Discussion Papers 119110, University of Bonn, Center for Development Research (ZEF).
    2. Webbink, Ellen & Smits, Jeroen & de Jong, Eelke, 2012. "Hidden Child Labor: Determinants of Housework and Family Business Work of Children in 16 Developing Countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 631-642.
    3. Muhammad Qahraman Kakar, 2021. "Ethnic Disparities, Women Education and Empowerment in South Asia," Erudite Ph.D Dissertations, Erudite, number ph21-01 edited by Manon Domingues Dos Santos.
    4. Md. Moyazzem Hossain & Faruq Abdulla & Abdul Hai & Md Tareq Ferdous Khan & Azizur Rahman & Atikur Rahman, 2023. "Exploring the Prevalence, Duration and Determinants of Participation in Household Chores Among Children Aged 5–17 Years in Bangladesh," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 16(5), pages 2107-2124, October.
    5. Edmonds, Eric V., 2008. "Child Labor," Handbook of Development Economics, in: T. Paul Schultz & John A. Strauss (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 57, pages 3607-3709, Elsevier.
    6. Oryoie, Ali Reza & Alwang, Jeffrey & Tideman, Nicolaus, 2017. "Child Labor and Household Land Holding: Theory and Empirical Evidence from Zimbabwe," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 45-58.
    7. Burrone, Sara & Giannelli, Gianna Claudia, 2019. "Does Child Labor Lead to Vulnerable Employment in Adulthood? Evidence for Tanzania," IZA Discussion Papers 12162, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Heather Congdon Fors, 2012. "Child Labour: A Review Of Recent Theory And Evidence With Policy Implications," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(4), pages 570-593, September.
    9. Eric V. Edmonds & Norbert Schady, 2012. "Poverty Alleviation and Child Labor," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 4(4), pages 100-124, November.
    10. Fabre, Alice & Pallage, Stéphane, 2015. "Child labor, idiosyncratic shocks, and social policy," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 394-411.
    11. Orazem, Peter F. & King, Elizabeth M., 2008. "Schooling in Developing Countries: The Roles of Supply, Demand and Government Policy," Handbook of Development Economics, in: T. Paul Schultz & John A. Strauss (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 55, pages 3475-3559, Elsevier.
    12. Dammert, Ana C., 2008. "Child labor and schooling response to changes in coca production in rural Peru," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(1), pages 164-180, April.
    13. Simone D’Alessandro & Tamara Fioroni, 2016. "Child labour and inequality," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 14(1), pages 63-79, March.
    14. Raymond Boadi Frempong & David Stadelmann, 2019. "The Effect of Food Price Changes on Child Labour: Evidence from Uganda," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(7), pages 1492-1507, July.
    15. Krisztina Kis-Katos, 2012. "Gender differences in work-schooling decisions in rural North India," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 10(4), pages 491-519, December.
    16. Mazzutti, Caio Cícero Toledo Piza da Costa, 2016. "Three essays on the causal impacts of child labour laws in Brazil," Economics PhD Theses 0616, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    17. Ellen Webbink & Jeroen Smits & Eelke Jong, 2013. "Household and Context Determinants of Child Labor in 221 Districts of 18 Developing Countries," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 110(2), pages 819-836, January.
    18. Malik, Samreen & Mihm, Benedikt, 2022. "Parental religiosity and human capital development: A field study in Pakistan," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 519-560.
    19. Dammert, Ana C. & de Hoop, Jacobus & Mvukiyehe, Eric & Rosati, Furio C., 2018. "Effects of public policy on child labor: Current knowledge, gaps, and implications for program design," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 104-123.
    20. Francavilla, Francesca & Giannelli, Gianna Claudia & Grilli, Leonardo, 2013. "Mothers’ Employment and their Children’s Schooling: A Joint Multilevel Analysis for India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 183-195.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pid:journl:v:59:y:2020:i:3:p:335-355. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Khurram Iqbal (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/pideipk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.