Child Labor and Schooling in Tunisia

This paper provides evidence on the extent of child labor in Tunisia, its determinants and its impact on schooling. It shows that 5.87% of the target population are involved in work. A rate which may increase in the future if policy-makers and stakeholders do not take adequate measure to protect children’s rights to a decent life and to a better education. In this paper, and using TLMPS data (2014), we show the “atypical” picture of Tunisia regarding this phenomenon. First, child labor is mostly an urban phenomenon: the impact of poverty on child labor is more pronounced in urban areas than in rural ones. Second, most children are involved in the service sector with 51.6% in services against only 32.2% in agriculture. And third, poverty is not the main reason to explain child labor family characteristics and the kind of father’s job are still significant. Moreover, we provide evidence that working-children are more likely to repeat school-grade and to lag behind grade levels. Likewise, working-children are more at risk to dropout, with girls more affected by dropout than boys.