The long shadow of child labour on adolescent mental health: a quantile approach

Abstract

This study examines the heterogeneous effect of child labour on adolescent mental health using longitudinal household data from the Indonesia Family Life Survey. We use legislative minimum wage as an instrument to address the endogeneity bias of child work. Results from the instrumental variable quantile estimation indicate that the effect of child labour is heterogeneous across the mental health distribution. Specifically, working as a child increases the mental health score (CES-D score) at all quantiles and the magnitude of the effect is large above the median of the distribution. This suggests that child workers are likely to develop depression later in life, especially adolescents with poor mental health. Additionally, we find that the effect of child work on adolescent mental health is greater for boys compared to girls.