Might women"s gardening activities have an unintended negative impact on children"s school attendance?

The survey also found that a high number of children are not attending school. The study concluded that child work might explain in part the low school attendance rate, and that gardening programs such as the one in the Ouadda� department might discourage women from sending these free laborers to school. The present study aimed to look more closely at these issues by posing the following research question: 1) Is child labor associated with market gardening an important contributor to low school attendance in Ab�ch� or are other variables (lack of or inadequate schools, lack of teachers or some cultural phenomena) the key determinants of low school attendance? We have tried to answer these questions through a review of the literature and an analysis of the relationship between gardening and school attendance. The findings suggest that, while other factors such as presence of schools and school and teacher quality are important, gardening in Ouaddai has a negative impact on school attendance as garden size and labor demands (and household income) increase. A logistic regression model was used to provide a better understanding of the interrelationship between women gardening and schooling. This paper is divided into three sections: literature review, regression results and, conclusions and policy recommendations. (Author abstract)