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Estimating the prevalence of child labour in the cocoa industry via indirect elicitation methods: a mixed-methods study

Lepine, Aurelia; Ndjore, Yah Ariane Bernadette; Treibich, Carole; Cust, Henry; Foubert, Laurent; Passey, Megan; Binder, Selina; (2024) Estimating the prevalence of child labour in the cocoa industry via indirect elicitation methods: a mixed-methods study. Journal of Population Economics , 37 , Article 77. 10.1007/s00148-024-01054-3. Green open access

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Abstract

Data from children suggest that the prevalence of child labour in the cocoa industry in Côte d’Ivoire is a worrying 38%. However, while surveying children has the potential to reduce sensitivity biases such as social desirability bias, it presents significant ethical dilemmas and may also be associated with other reporting biases, making accurate estimates of child labour difficult. To address this, we collected data from 1741 cocoa producers to assess whether parents could provide more accurate estimates using indirect survey methods. We compared direct questioning with a list experiment and a novel non-verbal method (‘colorbox’). We found higher prevalence rates of child labour using indirect elicitation methods, but lower than those obtained from children’s surveys. Qualitative in-depth interviews revealed motivations for underreporting, including fear of legal consequences and mistrust of stakeholders. Indirect methods alone are not sufficient to correct for underreporting when child labour is collected from parents. Future research should prioritise direct data collection from children and address ethical concerns to obtain more accurate estimates of child labour.

Type: Article
Title: Estimating the prevalence of child labour in the cocoa industry via indirect elicitation methods: a mixed-methods study
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1007/s00148-024-01054-3
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-024-01054-3
Language: English
Additional information: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Keywords: Child labour; Sensitive bias; Measurement error; Cocoa; Sustainable development goals
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute for Global Health
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10197320
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