ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the activities of Chileans, Peruvians, and Mexicans who are ages twelve to seventeen, with a special focus on the determinants of their school participation. However, the multivariate results confirm that, when they are not attending school full-time, girls are far more likely than boys to be in the "neither work nor school" category. When broken down by place of residence, the surveys reveal that child labor is concentrated in rural areas. The chapter describes a statistical model commonly used to investigate reasons why some children attend school on a fulltime basis, why others combine school with work, and why still others drop out of school and work full-time. Multinomial logistic models have been used extensively by social scientists for modeling choices among occupations and activities. The chapter provides a detailed examination of factors leading children to labor force participation, either as an alternative to education or in conjunction with school attendance.
