Child Labor, School Attendance, and Intrahousehold Gender Bias in Brazil

Abstract

An extensive survey data set of Brazilian households is used to test whether intrahousehold gender bias affects the decisions of mothers and fathers to send their sons and daughters to work and to school. An intrahousehold allocation model is examined in which fathers and mothers may affect the education investment and the child labor participation of their sons and daughters differently because of differences in parental preferences or differences in how additional schooling affects sons' and daughters' acquisition of human capital. Brazilian household survey data for 1998 are used to estimate the impact of each parent's education on the labor market participation and school attendance of their sons and daughters. For labor market participation, the father's education has a greater negative impact than the mother's education on the labor status of sons. The father's education also has a greater impact on sons' labor status than on daughters'. For schooling decisions, the mother's education has a greater positive impact than the father's education on daughters' school attendance, but fathers have a greater positive impact on sons' school attendance than on daughters'.