Malawi Child Labour Survey 2002
Malawi, 2002
Identification
MWI_2002_CLS_v01_M
Malawi Child Labour Survey 2002
| Name | Country code |
|---|---|
| Malawi | MWI |
Child Labor Survey [hh/cls]
The issue of child labour is a major concern to the Government of Malawi, as it is to many other countries. The problem has long been recognized and the government has enacted laws to prohibit child labour and to develop national policies and programmes to meet the urgent needs of children in the country. The policies and programmes need monitoring and evaluation in order to assess their impact on the characteristics of working children. The usual censuses and surveys in the country provide very limited information on the issue of working children because they are not designed with the specific objective of assessing the nature and extent of child labour. It was against this backdrop that the Malawi Child Labour Survey (MCLS) was initiated to look into specific issues of child labour in Malawi such as the magnitude of child labourers, reasons for child labour and the effects of work on child development in relation to health, education and morality. The MCLS which was a nation-wide household based survey, was conducted in 2002 while the Children in Commercial Sex Exploitation Survey and Street Kids Survey were done in 2003.
Sample survey data [ssd]
The target group for the household-based survey was the age group 5-17 years, living in private households. Out of the targeted population, working children are the ultimate unit of analysis.
Scope
The scope of the survey includes the following:
- General information
- Education and training of all persons aged 5 and above
- Activity status of all households in the last twelve months
- Current activity status of all household members during the last 7 days
- Current activity status of all children in the last twelve months
- Health and safety issues of all children
- Perceptions of parents/guardians about children
- About children who are living away from household/family
- Housing and household characteristics
- Household socio-economic status
- Earnings and mode of payment
- Future intentions of all children
- STIs and HIV awareness
- Problems faced by street kids and government interventions
Coverage
The survey covered all the three regions of Malawi and was representative at both the national and regional level.
Producers and sponsors
| Name |
|---|
| National Statistical Office |
| Name | Role |
|---|---|
| Ministry of Labour | |
| Samaritan Trust | Facilitating participation in the Street kids and Children in Commercial Sexual Exploitation Surveys |
| Eye of the Child | Facilitating participation in the Street kids and Children in Commercial Sexual Exploitation Surveys |
| Name | Role |
|---|---|
| USDOL | Financial and technical support |
| International Labour Organisation (ILO) | Financial and technical support |
| National AIDS Commission (NAC) | Financial and technical support |
| United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) | Financial and technical support |
Sampling
A nation-wide representative sample of 8,000 households was selected, out of which 7,855 households were successfully interviewed. In addition, purposive sample surveys of Street Kids and Children in Commercial Sexual Exploitation were conducted to supplement the household survey.
The area-sampling frame used for the survey was based on the 1998 Malawi Master Sample developed by the National Statistical Office soon after the 1998 Population and Housing Census. The sample frame contains 808 enumeration areas (EAs) covering the three regions of Malawi. For the purpose of the Child Labour Survey, the 808 EAs were stratified into 7 groups according to agro-economic zones and rural/ urban set-up. This was done to come up with a good representative sample at the regional level. There was only one urban stratum for all gazetted cities, towns and district urban areas in each region. This resulted in 15 strata.
The sample design was a two stage-stratified sampling scheme. The first stage involved the selection of enumeration areas (EAs) as primary sampling units (PSUs) and the second stage involved the selection of households as secondary sampling units. In total 400 EAs were selected with Probability Proportional to Size (PPS), the size being household members enumerated in the 1998 Population and Housing Census. The selection of the EAs was done independently for each of the 15 strata. Households were selected by systematic random sampling at a fixed rate of 20 households per EA.
Survey instrument
The questionnaire consists of five major components: Household roster, information about target children 5–17 years of age soliciting from parents or guardians, socio-economic status, housing and household characteristics, and questions addressed directly to children 5-17 years of age.
The household roster was used to list all household members who live in the household for at least 4 days a week, including children in boarding school. Background information of each member was collected; including age, relationship to the head of the household, sex, schooling and training, economic activity status for past seven days and the past twelve months of persons aged 5 years and above. The household roster was also used to identify the children between the ages of 5 and 17 years old who were interviewed separately.
The second component was used to obtain information on children aged between 5 and 17 years by asking the head of the household or any responsible member about each of the targeted children in that household. This component mainly concentrated on house keeping activities and work related issues of children; perception of parents/guardians on working children, migration status of children and awareness of children recruitments.
The third and fourth components were used to collect data on household’s socio-economic activities over the last two years, information on household characteristics including type of dwelling unit, status of ownership, rent, household facilities, main source of cooking fuel, source of drinking water, household’s assets, major activity from which the household derives income and average expenditure of household per month.
Finally, children of the ages 5-17 years were interviewed using some of the questions in the first component (Household roster) and the second component (Information about children of the ages 5-17 years) and additional questions on employee children.
Data collection
| Start | End |
|---|---|
| 2002-08 | 2002-11 |
In order to ensure the quality of data collected, supervision and monitoring of field operations were carried out at three levels. Firstly, the field supervisors of the roving team edit all questionnaires while still within the EA. Secondly, the zone officer visited the field staff occasionally in order to monitor their operations, cross-checking and endorsing the completed questionnaires. The Regional Controller who cross-checked the completed questionnaires submitted to him by the zone officers under his jurisdiction carried out the final level of supervision. To improve the alertness of the field team, the Regional Controller occasionally visited some of the zones.
Finally at the national level supervision was conducted by a team comprising senior officers from NSO, MoLVT Headquarters, Malawi Human Rights Commission and other stakeholders. The completed and edited questionnaires were submitted by the field supervisors to the zone officers who in turn sent them to their Regional Offices for onward transmission to NSO Headquarters.
Data processing
The processing of child labour data started two weeks after starting data collection. All data entry clerks participated in the training course at Nkhande Agriculture Training Centre. In addition to field interviews, they underwent data processing training for three days. The data entry lasted up to early February 2003. The period from February 2003 to April 2003 was devoted to data cleaning and logical checks. Microsoft Access was used for data capturing and logical checks but the data was later transferred to SPSS PC+ for further cleaning and tabulations.
Data Access
Use of the dataset must be acknowledged using a citation which would include:
- the Identification of the Primary Investigator
- the title of the survey (including country, acronym and year of implementation)
- the survey reference number
- the source and date of download
Example:
National Statistics Office. Malawi Child Labour Survey (CLS) 2002. Ref. MWI_2002_CLS_v01_M. Dataset downloaded from [url] on [date].
Disclaimer and copyrights
The user of the data acknowledges that the original collector of the data, the authorized distributor of the data, and the relevant funding agency bear no responsibility for use of the data or for interpretations or inferences based upon such uses.
Contacts
| Name | URL | |
|---|---|---|
| National Statistics Office (NSO) | enquiries@statistics.gov.mw | http://www.nsomalawi.mw/ |
Metadata production
DDI_MWI_2002_CLS_v01_M_WB
| Name | Affiliation | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Development Economics Data Group | The World Bank | Documentation of the DDI |
2014-04-09
Metadata version
Version 01 (April 2014)