The impact of children's work on schooling: Multi-country evidence

Abstract

Is there a threshold of hours of work below which the schooling of 12-14 year-olds is not adversely affected by child labour? In order to answer this question, the authors draw on child labour data sets from seven countries to estimate the effects of child labour on school attendance and performance and on non-schooling variables such as mean study time and literacy, controlling for the endogeneity of child labour hours as a regressor. They find robust evidence that child labour hours have a strong negative impact on the educational variables from the moment a child enters the labour market. Copyright © International Labour Organization 2005.