likely that some parents believe that they are being benevolent if their children are spending time and working with them, learning their trade and acquiring such practical life-skills. Some parents working on the farm will also want their children with them as they can be better supervised when not in school, while conceivable that (especially older) children would then assist their parents rather than just watch them work.

Basic descriptive evidence suggests that much child labor in the country is not economically necessary or a result of poverty given the quantitative evidence from GLSS that 9% of all children in households in the richest quintile that own land are working (assisting) in family farming, together with the qualitative evidence from field research and from the Minister about his own children assisting on the farm during planting and harvest seasons. Even though the vast majority of child laborers work on a family farm, there are other forms of child labor in the country ranging from those who chase tro-tros (mini-buses) in motion to sell products like fan-ice (ice-cream), to others who are exploited or engaged in bondage labor within fishing communities, as participatory observations in 2010 illustrate.<sup>16</sup> The principal occupation of child laborers (agricultural work) typically involves assisting with planting and harvesting crops (primarily maize, yam, cassava), watching over animals during harvest seasons and/or ensuring that birds do not damage crop fields, as field research in 2010 illustrates. In certain cases some children can nonetheless be exposed to chemicals (fertilizers or pesticides), intense heat, injuries,<sup>17</sup> or threats posed by some animals, parasites or plants (Edmonds and Pavcnik 2005).<sup>18</sup> _A lack of higher returns to basic schooling for those employed in agriculture can help reduce school demand and increase child labor demand in agricultural households_ . An important result is that the annual income of household heads aged 15 or older who are self-employed in agriculture is basically the same for those with no schooling (US$59) as for those with 9- years of completed basic education (US$56) as shown in Table 1.<sup>19</sup> However, those who reach this level of schooling but work in another occupational group earn higher average annual income. The low returns to education for the large share of self-employed in agriculture are of policy concern since lower secondary is generally the highest level of education attained in rural areas, so that economic incentives to complete basic schooling are largely lacking in a country where most are employed in agriculture. This is important policy information because for many households the decision to bring a child or adolescent to the field to assist in farming activities or send them to school and for what duration may be assessed using cost-benefit analysis. This can involve comparing—for primary school for example—the direct private costs per child (GH¢52.81 annually based on 2005/06 GLSS data)<sup>20</sup> and the opportunity costs of schooling (the forgone earnings from child labor) together with the public costs (GH¢91.49 annually based on 2006 government EMIS data) on

> 16 In extreme cases some parents at times deny their children schooling and engage them in illegal gold mining, as children were observed mining during school hours in 2010 in Bonsaaso, a poor rural village located in the Amansie-West district (Ashanti region).

> 17 The ILO (1997) found that children’s self-reported injury rate of working in agriculture is about 12% based on child labor surveys.

> 18 Yet, while the worst forms of child labor are generally outside of agriculture and include trafficking, forced labor, child soldiering, and prostitution, they are rare although difficult to capture in randomised surveys (Edmonds 2008).

> 19 It is important to bear in mind that income levels are likely higher than reported because individuals active in subsistence farming often do not state a portion of their income as it is consumed.

> 20 These household expenses for schooling persist despite the adoption of national legislation to abolish fees for basic education (World Bank and UNICEF 2009).

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