Two major ideas dominate past literature on child labor. First, past literature
continues to support the well-developed relationship between poverty and rates of child
labor. Second, past literature continues to associate school attendance as the primary
opportunity cost of child labor and juxtaposes the two variables as a mutually exclusive
trade off. The following project investigates both these ideas. By conducting several
logit regression models between school attendance and participation in family-affiliated
agricultural practices in Nigeria, the paper investigates a specific aspect of poverty
(school attendance) while also providing empirical evidence to support the assumed
relationship that education and child labor represent a trade off. The findings support the
notion that school attendance correlates with a decreased likelihood of participation in
moderate forms of child labor. Children in Nigeria who attend school are less likely to
also have worked in a family affiliated agricultural capacity. The project concludes by
discussing the potentially positive policy implications for eliminating exploitative child
labor. By framing moderate agricultural labor as the most engrained form of child labor,
the theoretical implications of the impact of school attendance on child labor becomes
even greater.