activity rates, although the proportion explained by within-region variation is higher with respect to child labor rates than with respect to child economic activity rates.

Notwithstanding, the difference in mean child labor rates across regions is highly statistically significant.12 Delving into which particular regional differences in mean child labor rates matter, we find that the mean child labor rate for AFR is significantly different from the corresponding statistics for ECA and LAC (see Table 12).13

# _Child labor rates by gender_

Consistent with finding for child economic activity rates, we find that in general boys are more likely to be engaged in child labor than girls. In 51 out of the 59 sample countries, the child labor rate for boys exceeds that of girls (see Table 13 and Figure 8). Exceptions to this rule are found by and large in AFR.14 The mean child labor rate for boys is 14.2 percent, while the corresponding statistic for girls is 10.6 percent. This difference in means is statistically significant.15 Disaggregating the total sample by region, we find that the rank order of regions based on the male-female difference in mean child labor rates differs from the rank order based on the malefemale difference in mean economic activity rates. Here, SAR has the highest difference (7.9 percentage points), while MNA has the lowest (1 percentage point). We, however, find that the gender differences in mean child labor rates between regions is not statistically significant.16 Finally, the _mean_ male-female difference in child labor rates across regions is similar to the male-female difference in _mea_ n child labor rates across regions (see Table 14).

# _Summary_

To conclude this section, we briefly summarize our main findings. Beginning with child economic activity rates, on average, roughly 1 in 5 children work, though there exists significant variation in child economic activity rates across countries. The regional breakdown reveals that, compared to most regions, AFR is unique; the region has the highest child economic activity rate with roughly 1 in 3 children working. The gender breakdown reveals that, in the vast majority of countries, boys are more likely to work than girls. The exceptions to this general rule are predominately found in AFR. On average, roughly 1 in 4 boys and 1 in 5 girls work. Examining the relationship between the share of children working (i.e., the economic activity rate) and the share of children working and not attending school, the two appear to be strongly and positively associated across countries.

> 12 A test of the equality of log mean economic activity rates between regions yielded a _F_ -statistic of 5.18 with a _p_ - value of 0.0006.

> 13 We also conducted Scheffe and Sidak multiple comparison tests.  The results from these two test adjustment methods are in agreement with the Bonferroni adjustment.

> 14 The exceptions are Cameroon, Central African Republic, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, Tanzania in AFR, Egypt in MNA, and Nepal in SAR.

> 15 A test of the equality of mean log child labor rates between genders yielded a _F_ -statistic of 7.64 and a _p_ -value of 0.0067.

> 16 W could not reject the null hypothesis that the gender differences in mean log economic activity rates were equal across regions.  The male-region interaction terms in a least squares regression of log economic activity rates across countries on gender and region were jointly statistically insignificant ( _F_ -statistic=1.36, _p_ -value=0.2457).

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