Does The Household Structure Create Child Labor? The Case in Indonesia

Abstract

The existence of child labor is a complex phenomenon and is often considered a logical consequence, in a household, of the economic needs of poverty-stricken families. This is due to several factors such as the condition of the child himself, the family background, and the influences of parents, culture and environment. This paper aims to determine the effect of household structure on child labor by comparing households headed by divorced single mothers and nuclear households that include a mother and father in Indonesia. This study uses cross-sectional data from the 2014 Indonesia Family Life Survey (IFLS) with the instrumental variable (IV) method. The results showed that, for the nuclear households that include a mother and father, the probability of child labor decreased, or that when a divorced single mother heads the household, the likelihood of child labor increases, including in rural areas. The same thing happens when households headed by divorced single mothers tend to increase the likelihood of sons being sent into the labor market. Thus, household structure has a vital role in determining the decisions of parents to engage their children in paid employment