In Africa today, children may be sent to live with non-relative for employment reasons. This short paper proposes a measure based on data from the 2008-2009 Demographic and Health Survey in Madagascar to identify children living with non-relatives and not attending school who are liable to be engaged in child labour. In Madagascar, children may move between family households, but may also be sent to live outside the family for economic reasons. We postulate that the models of child placement for economic reasons are gender-based and linked to geographic location. The results show that 1.4% of children aged 6-17 are in this situation. Two profiles can be identified: girls engaged in child labour tend to work in towns in households with high socioeconomic status, while boys work in areas with strong demand for farm labour. The authors make recommendations for improving data collection and suggest that surveys of child maids and farm labourers be conducted to identify harmful situations, to understand the processes whereby children become engaged in child labour (origin, means deployed), and to find out more about these children’s outcomes.