This research is motivated as a result of increasing deterioration of child welfare in terms of drop out of children from school, high incidence of child participating in economic activities and incidence of street children in Nigeria. Though many researches have been conducted in areas of child welfare, most of these researches neglected the determining factors of these welfare indices as well as relationship between poverty and child welfare. Or, at best pocket of researches has been done using small unrepresentative sample. Most if not all of these studies in Nigeria have not used national data to make their conclusion because of unavailability of such data. This may have contributed to poor policy response to child welfare in Nigeria as the literature has shown that child welfare continue to deteriorate. This study used FOS/ILO, 2001 Child Labour Survey to examine these issues. The study noted among other things that participation in school or work is dictated by region, sector, child, parent and household characteristics. In addition, the study also noted that poverty has a very weak response to child welfare. The study also noted incidence of street children is a response to poverty, parental interest and regional differences. The study thus suggested in addition to regular survey on child labour and street children to monitor the trends, that policies aiming at improving child welfare in Nigeria should consider sector, region, child, parents, household and community characteristics in their policy.