Another feature of this study is that it seeks to survey not only the economic research, but also research from other social sciences, particularly social anthropology. The social anthropological studies deal with an aspect of child labor so far less adequately dealt with by economists - the relationship between their labor and their socialization; how certain types of labor and education may give rise to different preferences to the children as adults.
A major, but tentative conclusion of this survey is that the relationship between poverty and child labor is less close than normally assumed in the policy debate.
Why is poverty not such an important explanation of child labor in Sub-Saharan
Africa? One possibility is, of course, that the data are extremely noisy. The clue might also be sought in another direction, however. The bulk of the child labor registered in Africa is not wage labor, but labor performed in the household