Do working children have worse academic performance?

Objective: To examine the effect of child labor on school children's academic performance.

Methods: Primary school children engaged in child labor were compared with age, sex and school-matched controls for absence from school and scores obtained at sessional examination in English language, Mathematics, Sciences and Social studies.

Results: There was no significant difference in the mean rate of school absence (p = 0.80), mean aggregate examination scores (p = 0.1) and proportion of class repeaters (p = 0.16) among working school children and the controls. However, a significantly higher proportion of the controls had high (>75%) average examination scores compared with the working school children (p = 0.017). Similarly, the controls performed better than working school children in each of four core subjects but significant differences were observed only in Social Studies and Science (p = 0.006 and 0.001 respectively).

Conclusion: There is some undermining of academic performance among children who combine schooling with child labor despite comparable school absence with the controls.