Child Labour Hours Research Articles

School attendance and child labor: Evidence from Mexico’s Full-Time School program

This paper examines the effect of a program that extended the length of the school day from part-time to full-time in Mexico, on school enrollment, time spent on schooling activities, as well as market and excessive domestic work of children aged 7 to 14. We further analyze possible spillover effects within the household focusing on older siblings and parents. To identify the effect, we take advantage of the staggered implementation of the Full-Time Schools (FTS) program across municipalities from 2009 to 2018. The results show that the FTS program has no impact on school enrollment, but increases the weekly hours allocated to schooling activities, and at the same time reduces child labor hours. A one standard deviation increase in the share of FTS reduces the probability of engaging in child labor by 0.9 percentage points, which implies a 12% reduction in child labor.

Deprivation as a Causal Factor for Child Labour:A Case Study from Sikkim

Poverty is well recognized as an important supply side factor on the child labour issue. The paper explored this relationship in a situation where a household is compelled to send their children to work because of the concern of the parents for household survival. Instead of measuring poverty in a traditional way, which is exclusively interpreted in monetary terms, this study explained the link between child labour and poverty in a more expanded and meaningful way in the form of deprivation. With a particular empirical focus on Sikkim, which is one of the most neglected and untouched areas with regard to child labour research in spite of being ranked first in terms of work participation rate of children in 2001 Census, the paper tried to answer the question of whether the attainment of basic capabilities reduces child labour. With this purpose in mind, poverty was measured in a multi-dimensional approach, where a human deprivation index was constructed on the basis of the lack of basic infrastructural facilities in three respects, that is, education, health, and standard of living. In the latter part of the paper, the Pearson correlation coefficient was used as a measure of the degree of association between deprivation and child labour hours. As expected, child labour is treated as an increasing function of human deprivation. The study also showed the intensity of child labourers across different income classes in Sikkim by using the goodness of fit test. In case of the low income classes, the number of children in the labour force is likely to be higher up.

Health consequences of child labour in Bangladesh

This paper examines the effect of child labour on child health outcomes in Bangladesh. We use self-reported injury or illness due to work as a general measure of health status. Using the Bangladesh National Child Labour Survey data for 2002-2003, the results reveal that child labour is positively and significantly associated with the probability of being injured or becoming ill once the endogenous relationship between these factors is accounted for. These findings remain robust when we consider child labour hours and restrict our analysis to rural areas. Moreover, the intensity of injury or illness is significantly higher in construction and manufacturing sectors than in other sectors. Investigating the effect of child labour on subjective health across age groups, we find that health disadvantages for different age groups are not essentially parallel.

English

  This study investigated whether the child labour prevailing in the rice-growing areas of Cambodia where wealth is measure in terms of cattle, can be explain by the poverty hypothesis and wealth paradox. In order to test if these hypotheses hold in all contexts, this study presented some evidences from rural Cambodia and used a Tobit model to investigate the impact of assets such as land and cattle on child labour. While field evidence showed no significant relationship between child labour and farmland size or income, this study found an inverse U-shaped relationship between the number of cattle owned by farmers and child labour hours. These findings suggest that the poverty hypothesis and the wealth paradox do not support the evidence on child labour supply in rural Cambodia.   Key words: Child labour, poverty hypothesis, wealth paradox, inverse U-shaped relationship, Cambodia.

Child labor and household wealth: Theory and empirical evidence of an inverted-U

Some studies on child labor have shown that, at the level of the household, greater land wealth leads to higher child labor, thereby casting doubt on the hypothesis that child labor is caused by poverty. This paper argues that the missing ingredient may be an explicit modeling of the labor market. We develop a simple model which suggests the possibility of an inverted-U relationship between land holdings and child labor. Using a unique data set that has child labor hours it is found that, controlling for child, household and village characteristics, the turning point beyond which more land leads to a decline in child labor occurs around 4 ac of land per household.

Child Labor and Household Wealth: Theory and Empirical Evidence of an Inverted-U

Some studies on child labor have shown that greater land wealth leads to higher child labor, thereby casting doubt on the hypothesis that child labor is caused by poverty. This paper argues that the missing ingredient is an explicit modeling of the labor market. We develop a simple model which suggests an inverted-U relationship between land holdings and child labor. A unique data set from India that has child labor hours information confirms this hypothesis. It is shown that the turning point beyond which more land leads to a decline in child labor occurs at 3.6 acres of land per household, which is well below the observed maximum value of land-holding.

Child Labor and Household Wealth: Theory and Empirical Evidence of an Inverted-U

Some studies on child labor have shown that greater land wealth leads to higher child labor, thereby casting doubt on the hypothesis that child labor is caused by poverty. This paper argues that the missing ingredient is an explicit modeling of the labor market. We develop a simple model which suggests an inverted-U relationship between land holdings and child labor. A unique data set from India that has child labor hours information confirms this hypothesis. It is shown that the turning point beyond which more land leads to a decline in child labor occurs at 3.6 acres of land per household, which is well below the observed maximum value of land-holding.

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

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.

The Determinants of Child Labour and Child Schooling in Ghana

This paper investigates the main determinants of child labour and child schooling in Ghana, with special reference to their interaction. The study provides evidence on the impact of poverty and quality of schooling on child labour hours, taking into account their potential endogeneity. The exercise distinguishes between cluster poverty and household poverty in the two-stage Heckman estimation procedure. In addition, it relies on a set of non-common regressors to identify the child labour hours regression from the selection equation. Other methodological features include simultaneous equations estimation of child labour, child schooling and poverty, taking into account their joint endogeneity. The empirical results contain some evidence of sharp rural urban differences, thus, pointing to the need to adopt region specific policies in enhancing child welfare. However, rural, semi-urban and urban Ghana agree on the effective role that improved school attendance can play in curbing child labour.

Grand Plans: Business Progressivism and Social Change in Ohio’s Miami Valley, 1890–1929 by Judith Sealander

1064 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Hoover’s reelection in 1932 by the authorities who controlled condi­ tions at Boulder City and the dam site, Roosevelt overwhelmingly carried the workers’ vote at the encampment (see pp. 171-73). A final note on style: For much of the book Stevens provides a straightforward, readable account of activities at the dam site, and he eschews needless description. But the beginnings of most chapters are bogged down with overblown prose that is more suitable for feature articles in Sunday newspapers than for serious history. For example, in breathless tone he dramatizes an important early meeting of the contractors that formed Six Companies Inc. with descriptions such as: “The groan that slipped from his chalky lips went unheard” and “Only his eyes, bright blue and sparkling, seemed truly alive” (p. 5). Readers are advised to accept such descriptive flights with a grain of salt and a dose of tolerance. The bulk of the book is good history that warrants serious attention and scholarly interest. Donald C. Jackson Dr. Jackson is assistant professor of history at Lafayette College. His book Great American Bridges and Dams was recently published by Preservation Press. Grand Plans: Business Progressivism and Social Change in Ohio’s Miami Valley, 1890—1929. By Judith Sealander. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1988. Pp. viii + 263; illustrations, notes, bibliog­ raphy, index. $26.00. Grand Plans is a fine case study of the Progressive movement as it evolved in southwestern Ohio’s Miami Valley in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Judith Sealander’s principal objective is illuminating the precise connections between area business leadership and the varieties of reform in the nine-county region. This she accomplishes through a careful examination of four avowedly Progressive projects conducted therein: an innovative program of extensive employee benefits at the National Cash Register Company, eventually the region’s largest employer; the creation, through the Miami Conser­ vancy District, of a massive and successful flood prevention system; the establishment of a pioneering business-oriented city-manager form of government in Dayton, the valley’s one major city; and businesslike experimental approaches to education at all levels in the region’s public and private schools. Collectively, the four projects brought the valley a national reputation for reform. Sealander is fully familiar with the persistent and still unresolved historical debates over whether the business community sincerely supported any Progressive measures in the areas of greater democ­ racy and greater social justice, from expanding the franchise to TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 1065 electing U.S. senators directly to regulating child labor hours, wages, and working conditions; and over whether big business endorsed only those crusades it could likely manipulate for its own ends, such as nonpartisan city managers and city commissions, government regu­ latory agencies, and revamped educational administrations. To her credit, Sealander refuses to get bogged down in lengthy historio­ graphical reviews but instead concentrates on her four projects, letting their histories govern her conclusions. Also to her credit, she refuses to categorize the business leaders behind those projects—and, especially important to historians of technology, their engineering and managerial associates—as either heroes or villains. As Sealander persuasively shows, these reformers had multiple motivations, altruistic as well as selfish. Their “grand plans” incorpo­ rated scientibc management, moral uplift, and—of special relevance here—massive civil engineering. Under the inspired leadership of engineer Arthur Morgan, later president of Antioch College and then brst chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority’s board of directors, the Miami Conservancy District proved the most successful of the four projects. Using unconventional methods, including the construc­ tion of several enormous earthen reservoirs and a literal reshaping of the valley’s topography, Morgan’s system not only made the region “forever floodproof” (p. 54) at remarkably low cost but also provided many acres of public parkland together with much improved farm­ land. Given the size and complexity of the project, one exceeded only by the Panama Canal, it was perhaps inevitable that a new public legal entity, with exceptional powers of eminent domain, would be created. These engineering and administrative feats, along with Morgan’s scheme to better the lot of ordinary workers hired...