Schooling , Child Labor , and the Returns

We study the effects of accessing better healthcare on the schooling and labor supply decisions of sick children in Tanzania. Using variation in the cost of formal sector healthcare to predict treatment choice, we show that accessing better healthcare decreases length of illness and changes children's allocation of time to school and work. Children attend school for more days per week--but not for more hours per day--as a result of accessing better healthcare. There are no significant effects on child labor, but the results suggest that time spent in physically strenuous activities such as farming and herding increases. * Achyuta R. Adhvaryu is an assistant professor of public health at Yale University (email: [email protected]; web: http://www.yale.edu/adhvaryu). Anant Nyshadham is a graduate student in the Department of Economics at Yale University (email: [email protected]; web: http://nyshadham.squarespace.com). The authors thank Prashant Bharadwaj, Michael Boozer, Eric Edmonds, Jason Fletcher, James Fenske, Fabian Lange, T. Paul Schultz, Chris Udry, and participants at the Yale Labor/Public Finance Lunch and the IZA Workshop on Child Labor for helpful comments. The data used in this article can be obtained beginning six months after publication through three years hence from Achyuta Adhvaryu, 60 College Street, New Haven, CT 06510. Adhvaryu and Nyshadham 2