Mobile money, child labour and school enrolment

Abstract

This paper analyses the impact of household adoption of mobile money services on child labour and schooling in Tanzania. The paper uses data drawn from the Tanzania National Panel Surveys (TNPS), for the survey periods as follows: 2008/09, 2010/11, 2012/13, and 2014/15. The TNPS are national representative surveys conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics of Tanzania in collaboration with the World Bank Living Standards Measurement Study-Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LMSA-ISA). The surveys collect detailed information on individual, household, and community-level characteristics. The panel nature of the TNPS allows for the same households to be interviewed over time. The study uses a difference-in-differences approach, and instrumental variables strategy to investigate the nexus between mobile money adoption and child labour and school enrolment in Tanzania. The findings of this study reveal a positive and significant effect of mobile money adoption on school enrolment, but a negative effect on children's labour market activities. Moreover, the study identifies heterogenous impacts across child's gender and age; and remittances receipt and education expenditure are the potential pathways through which mobile money adoption affects child labour and school enrolment. Overall, the results suggest that policies that enhance financial inclusion such as the introduction of mobile money can be effective in improving child's school enrolment and a decline in the incidence of child labour.