PMMA-12769 The Impact of Child and Youth Labor on his/her Performance in School

Abstract

In this study we analyze the impact of domestic and market child labor on learning using Prova Brazil census data from 2007 and 2011. To do that, we created a large panel dataset with students in 5th and 9th Grades. To measure the impact of children working in the labor market and/or in their households on Portuguese and Mathematics test scores, we estimated fixed effect models. An instrumental variable approach, proposed by Lewbel, was applied to the models to control for the endogeneity of child labor. Possible attrition bias was taken into account through inverse probability weights. Results show that the work performed by children either in the household, or in the labor market was detrimental to their academic performance, with working only in the labor market showing the largest impact for both girls and boys, followed by working both in the market and inside the house, and by working in the house alone. The largest impact was for 5th Grade girls who suffered a reduction of 19% in their Portuguese test scores when they worked only in the labor market. The largest impact for boys was a reduction of 14% in their 5th Grade Portuguese test scores when they worked only in the labor market.

Members

Project leader: Ana Lucia Kassouf

Project researchers: Ida Ono | Marcos Garcias | Camila Rossi

Scientific mentors: Luca Tiberti

Journal publication

Authors	Co-Authors	Title of paper	Title of Economic Review	Bibliographic references
Ana Lucia Kassouf	Luca Tiberti, Marcos Garcias	Evidence of the Impact of Children’s Household Chores and Market Labor on Learning from School Census Data in Brazil	Journal of Development Studies	Volume 56 Issue 11 2020 pp. 2097-2112
Ana Lucia Kassouf		Child labour and children’s right to a better life	The Lancet: Child & Adolescent Health	Volume 3, Issue 12, December 2019 pp 845-847

Working Papers

	Title	Modified	Size	Comments	Recommendations
	Evidence of the impact of children´s domestic and market labor on learning from school census data in Brazil	2016-12-28	5078.81KB	0	0

Policy Briefs

	Title	Modified	Size	Comments	Recommendations
	The impact of child and youth work on school performance in Brazil	2017-01-18	368.93kB	0	0

Final report

	Title	Modified	Size	Comments	Recommendations
		2016-08-17	810.69KB	0	0

Proposal

	Title	Modified	Size	Comments	Recommendations
		2015-04-30	561.14KB	0	0