Working or Schooling: What Determine Children’s Time Allocation in Senegal ?

This paper examines the empirical evidence underlying Senegalese household decision making on children occupations. Using household survey data we test the impact of household and individual characteristics on children activities, focusing on three mutually exclusive ones: school, housework and work. The originality of this paper is to highlight the importance of the opportunity costs of schooling (proxied by the presence of basic and facilities) on children activities. The paper also investigates the impact of female bargaining power on children activities. Such a power affects positively and significantly children schooling with a noteworthy gender bias favorable to boys.