Children's Work and Schooling Outcomes in Indonesia

Amy Hsin, University of California, Los Angeles

This paper examines the association between gender and sibship composition on children’s time use patterns across four activities—schooling, market oriented labor, non-market labor such as housework/childcare activities, and leisure. Using time allocation data collected from Indonesia, the quantitative results show gender divisions in children’s work activities with girls’ being primarily responsible for housework/childcare duties and boys’ primarily responsible for market oriented work. Having a younger sibling under the age of six increases the workload of both boys and girls; however, these increases in workload do not parallel decreases in schooling but parallel decreases in leisure. The qualitative data collected from focus groups conducted in Indonesia show that parents are reluctant to trade-off their children’s schooling time for labor and that parents wish to educate both their sons and daughters. Taken together, the results may suggest that children’s leisure time is a trade-off for work rather than schooling time for work.