1 Child Labor , Schooling , and Child Ability
نویسندگان
چکیده
Using data we collected in rural Burkina Faso, we examine how children’s cognitive abilities influence households’ decisions to invest in their education. To address the endogeneity of child ability measures, we use rainfall shocks experienced in utero or early childhood to instrument for ability. Negative shocks in utero lead to 0.24 standard deviations lower ability z-scores, corresponding with a 38 percent enrollment drop and a 49 percent increase in child labor hours compared with their siblings. Negative education impacts are largest for in utero shocks, diminished for shocks before age two, and have no impact for shocks after age two. We link the fetal origins hypothesis and sibling rivalry literatures by showing that shocks experienced in utero not only have direct negative impacts on the child’s cognitive ability (fetal origins hypothesis) but also negatively impact the child through the effects on sibling rivalry resulting from the cognitive differences.
منابع مشابه
Household schooling and child labor decisions in rural Bangladesh
Using empirical methods, this paper examines household schooling and child labor decisions in rural Bangladesh. The results suggest the following: poverty and low parental education are associated with lower schooling and greater child labor; asset-owning households are more likely to have children combine child labor with schooling; households choose the same activity for all children within t...
متن کاملParental health shocks, child labor and educational outcomes: Evidence from Tanzania.
This paper examines the impact of parental illness on children's education. We find that only father's illness decreases children's school attendance. Father's illness also has long-term impacts on child education, as it decreases children's likelihood of completing primary school and leads to fewer years of schooling. However, we find no evidence that father's illness affects schooling through...
متن کاملChild Labor, Child Schooling, and Their Interaction with Adult Labor: Empirical Evidence for Peru and Pakistan
Using data from Peru and Pakistan, this article tests two hypotheses: there is a positive association between hours of child labor and poverty, and there is a negative association between child schooling and poverty. Both of these hypotheses are confirmed by the Pakistani data, but not by the Peruvian data. The reduction in poverty rates due to income from children’s labor is greater in Pakista...
متن کاملHousehold shocks, child labor, and child schooling: evidence from Guatemala.
Using data from the National Survey of Standards of Living conducted in Guatemala in 2000, this article tests the hypothesis that Guatemalan households use child labor and reduce child schooling to cope with household shocks. First, the authors use factor analysis to estimate the latent household propensity to natural disasters and socioeconomic shocks. Then, they estimate bivariate probit mode...
متن کاملHousehold Choices of Child Labor and Schooling: A Simple Model with Application to Brazil
Household Choices of Child Labor and Schooling: A Simple Model with Application to Brazil This paper develops and estimates a simple structural model of household decisions regarding child labor and schooling. We argue that part of the conflicting results from the previous literature – related to the effect of improvements in economic conditions on child labor – derives from the different incom...
متن کاملSimultaneous Analysis of Child Labour and Child Schooling: Comparative Evidence from Nepal and Pakistan
This study investigates the key determinants of child labour hours and child schooling experience paying special attention to the interaction between the two. A significant methodogical feature that distinguishes the present study from previous investigations is that this analysis recognises the joint endogeneity of child labour, child schooling and child poverty. The study is conducted on Nepa...
متن کامل