CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

The researcher begins this chapter by dwelling on the effects of domestic chores on secondary school children’s schooling in Limbe, the statement of the problem, and the research questions brought forward by the researcher. Research objectives, as well as the limitations and delimitations of the study, will also to look upon

1.1background To The Study

The treatment of domestic chores in child schooling measurement has long been a point of contention among labour statisticians and policymakers. The current study presents evidence on children’s domestic chores as part of a broader effort towards developing common statistical criteria for classifying domestic chores as child labour.

Drawing on data from national domestic surveys, the study looks at both the characteristics of children’s domestic chores (i.e., prevalence, tasks, and time-intensity) and at their impact on education and health. The resolution on child labour statistics emerging from the 18th ICLS calls for the development of a standard methodology for estimating child labour at the international level, and the study is aimed at helping to inform this effort.

The resolution on child labour statistics from the 18th International Conference of Labour Statisticians (ICLS) broke new ground in including children in hazardous domestic chores, as part of the group of children engaged in child labour for the purposes of statistical measurement.

This is in recognition of the fact that in some circumstances the performance of domestic chores can impact negatively on children’s welfare, and therefore can fall within the legal definition of child labour set by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and other international legal standards.

Domestic chores can pose a particular threat to children’s right to education. Ensuring Education for All will require addressing the children and especially girls, having to spend significant amounts of time each day performing chores.

Children might be involved in domestic activities while they attend school, while they are involved in employment, or while they perform both or neither of these additional activities. Domestic chores include caring for siblings, sick, infirm, disabled or elderly members; cleaning and minor domestic repairs; cooking and serving meals; washing and ironing clothes, and transporting or accompanying family members to and from work and school.

The researcher observed that a very large proportion of secondary school children aged 7-14 years spend at least some time each week performing domestic chores in Limbe. Indeed, in most, children are more likely to be involved in domestic chores than in employment.   Although different reference years and survey instruments mean that cross-country comparisons should be interpreted with caution.

As mentioned above, domestic chores can be performed by children while they are involved in other activities, and particularly while they are engaged in employment. Children performing “double duty”, i.e., both domestic chores and employment simultaneously, face tighter time constraints and therefore can be at higher risk of repeating grades, dropping out of school. Children working longer hours because of their double duties can also be at higher risk of work-related accidents.

Rates of double duty are frequently very high. Particularly striking are the high rates of double duty in the Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). At least one-fourth of children perform double duty in 21 of 26 of the SSA countries. Double duty is generally more common among rural compared to urban children. Girls tend more to be specialized in domestic chores. The researcher now discusses gender specialization below.

The researcher estimates a multinomial logic model of the correlates of the probability of a child being engaged in activity j (Eq. 1). Since children might be involved in multiple activities, the researcher considers the following combinations of employment, education, and chores: employment only, employment and chores, education only, education and chores, employment and education, employment, education and chores, nothing, and chores only.

The main variable of interest is gender, we add additional controls including a second degree polynomial of age, a dummy for being the eldest child, the number of children between 0 and 4 and between 5 and 14 years of age, household size, a dummy for children in female-headed households, household head educational level, quintiles of household wealth, location of residence (a dummy for children in urban areas)

The researcher realizes that controlling for a set of individual and domestic level characteristics, children’s gender keeps an important role among the correlates of the type of activity they are engaged into.

However, females are more likely to be only engaged in domestic chores relative to males and less likely than males to be inactive (i.e., out of school, out of the labour market, and not involved in domestic chores). Schooling only appears to be a privilege of males: the marginal effect associated with being a female has in fact a negative sign in all the secondary school children in Limbe.

The probability of being involved in schooling only decreases by between 1 and 15 percentage points if the child is a female. The combination of schooling and employment is also a prerogative of boys.

Females are more likely to be involved in schooling and chores with a few exceptions. The marginal effect ranges between less than 1 and 27 percentage points, i.e. being a female can increase the likelihood of being involved in schooling and chores by some 30 percentage points relative to a male with the same individual and domestic characteristics. There are also some children performing employment, chores, and schooling.

1.2 Statement Of The Problem

The early years of an individual are considered the basis of the development of every aspect of the human being. This requires focusing on competency that takes into account the cognitive, social, and physical abilities.

Early childhood education meets these goals through approaches that are both family and school-based. This, therefore, requires a combined effort by teachers and parents in child upbringing that builds on family values and school-related functions that build on academic competence without compromising the child’s holistic development.

Bazley and Ennew (2006) indicate that taking part in domestic chores is one strategy for teaching competent personalities, values, skills, and a way of socializing children into adult roles critical for holistic development of the child, which the school alone cannot develop.

Children in traditional African families have been involved in supporting the family by participating in housework. However, modern life appears to have promoted ways of socializing children which are likely to focus on schooling to the neglect of skills that children used to develop at home through participating in domestic work. For example, families are employing house helps to free children to do homework at home.

At school, Otieno (2004) further highlights that teachers insist on academic tasks at the expense of the holistic development of children. In as much as research (Rosmann, 2008) indicates that children who are likely to be successful are those that received early childhood programs that target the development of a holistic individual, it has not been established whether children in modern-day society are taking part in domestic chores and how this is affecting their academic performance at school.

This is critical in ensuring the holistic development of children in early childhood education. There are other studies that have been done on children and work but not particularly domestic chores. This study carried out an investigation to establish the effects of domestic chores on secondary school children’s schooling, the contribution of this phenomenon on children’s academic performance, and the opinions and perspectives of children and parents towards engaging children in domestic chores.

1.2 Research Questions

The study therefore sets out to investigate the implications of domestic chores on the schooling and performance of secondary school children in Limbe

1.3 Research Objectives

In this section, emphasis is placed on two aspects. We talk of General objectives then we round it up with Specific objectives.

1.3.1 General Objectives

The study is focused on determining the implication or effects of domestic chores on secondary school children schooling and performance in Limbe

1.3.2 Specific Objectives

The specific objectives of the study are:

1. To identify the strategies employed in curbing the effects of household chores on secondary school girls and boys
2. To identify the challenges faced on girl’s schooling as regard household chores
3. To describe the concept of household chores on school performance
4. To establish the differences in the challenges faced on girl’s schooling and boy’s schooling in Government High School Limbe, Cameroon
5. To propose better strategies in curbing the effects of household chores on girl’s schooling as well as boy’s schooling in Government High School Limbe, Cameroon