estimates from Brazil, the intermittency multiplier could raise the global estimates of child labor by as much as 94 percent.<sup>3</sup>

# **III.  Cross-country patterns in child economic activity and child labor**

In this section, we discuss cross-country patterns that we observe in child economic activity rates and child labor rates for children aged 7-14 years in a large set of developing countries. We also discuss cross-country patterns that we observe in the distribution of economically active children by sector of economic activity and in the relationship between the share of children economically active and the share of children economically active _and_ not attending school. These patterns are examined for the sample as a whole as well as disaggregated by region and/or gender.

The child labor statistics for this study were obtained from Understanding Children’s Work (UCW), an ILO-UNICEF-World Bank inter-agency research organization. Depending on the country, the original source of the data is typically one of the following three nationallyrepresentative household sample surveys: the ILO’s Statistical Information and Monitoring Programme on Child Labour (SIMPOC) survey, the UNICEF’s Multiple Indicators Cluster Survey (MICS), or the World Bank’s Living Standards Measurment Study (LSMS) survey (see Table 1 for the original data source for each country). In terms of the survey year, the surveys were conducted between 1994-2003; the majority of the surveys were conducted between 1999 and 2001 (again, see Table 1).

Before presenting these statistics, we bring attention to two issues, one, methodological and other, data-related. First, where appropriate, all summary statistics are calculated by weighting each country’s child labor statistic by the country’s child population for the corresponding age group. Thus, larger countries influence the summary statistics more than smaller countries (such as small island countries). Second, the small number of country observations for three regions, namely, EAP, MNA and SAR, seriously impair our statistical comparisons across regions. We however hazard such an exercise, but caution the reader from placing undue weight on our findings with respect to these regions.

# _Child economic activity rates by region_

To begin, the mean child economic activity rate across the 65 countries in our sample is 21.3 percent, that is, a little more than 1 in 5 children between 7-14 years of age appear to be working. Our estimate is remarkably consistent with ILO (2002) estimates of the economic activity rate among children, sitting in-between their estimate of 17.6 percent for children between 5-14 years of age and 23.0 percent for children between 10-14 years of age. Furthermore, although the regional classifications differ somewhat between our study and the ILO’s, the findings on mean economic activity rates by region are broadly in agreement. Africa (AFR) appears to have the highest mean child economic activity rate, with slightly more than 1 out every 3 children working, whereas Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and Middle East and North Africa (MNA) have the lowest mean economic activity rates, with a little more than 1 out of every 10 children working (see Table 2).

The mean child economic activity rate reported above masks substantial variation in child economic activity rates across countries; child economic activity rates range from 4 percent in

> 3 See Duryea et. al. Forthcoming

4