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Is Child Labor Harmful? The Impact of Working Earlier in Life on Adult Earnings

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Author Info

  • Emerson, Patrick M.

    () (Oregon State University)

  • Portela Souza, André

    () (São Paulo School of Economics)

Abstract

This paper explores the question: is working as a child harmful to an individual in terms of adult outcomes in earnings? Though an extremely important question, little is known about the effect of child labor on adult outcomes. Estimations of an instrumental variables earnings model on data from Brazil show that child labor has a large negative impact on adult earnings for male children even when controlling for schooling and that the negative impact of starting to work as a child reverses at around ages 12-14.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number 3027.

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Length: 55 pages
Date of creation: Sep 2007
Date of revision:
Publication status: published in: Economic Development and Cultural Change, 2011, 59 (2), 345 - 385
Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3027

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Keywords: adult outcomes; Brazil; child labor;

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References

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  1. David M. Blau, 1999. "The Effect Of Income On Child Development," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(2), pages 261-276, May.
  2. Dessy, Sylvain E. & Pallage, Stephane, 2001. "Child labor and coordination failures," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 469-476, August.
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  8. Emerson, Patrick M & Souza, Andre Portela, 2003. "Is There a Child Labor Trap? Intergenerational Persistence of Child Labor in Brazil," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 51(2), pages 375-98, January.
  9. Basu, Kaushik & Tzannatos, Zafiris, 2003. "The Global Child Labor Problem: What Do We Know and What Can We Do?," Working Papers 03-06, Cornell University, Center for Analytic Economics.
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  19. Maurin, Eric, 2002. "The impact of parental income on early schooling transitions: A re-examination using data over three generations," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(3), pages 301-332, September.
  20. Horowitz, Andrew W. & Wang, Jian, 2004. "Favorite son? Specialized child laborers and students in poor LDC households," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 631-642, April.
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  25. Dessy, Sylvain E., 2000. "A defense of compulsive measures against child labor," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 261-275, June.
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Citations

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Cited by:
  1. Vladimir Ponczek & Andre Portela Souza, 2012. "New Evidence of the Causal Effect of Family Size on Child Quality in a Developing Country," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 47(1), pages 64-106.
  2. Tsukada, Raquel, 2011. "The First Born Burden," Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Berlin 2011 77, Verein für Socialpolitik, Research Committee Development Economics.
  3. Eric V. Edmonds, 2007. "Child Labor," NBER Working Papers 12926, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  4. Ponczek, Vladimir Pinheiro & Souza, André Portela Fernandes de, 2007. "The causal effect of family size on child labor and education," Textos para discussão 162, Escola de Economia de São Paulo, Getulio Vargas Foundation (Brazil).
  5. Beegle, Kathleen & Dehejia, Rajeev H. & Gatti, Roberta & Krutikova, Sofya, 2008. "The consequences of child labor : evidence from longitudinal data in rural Tanzania," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4677, The World Bank.
  6. Sebastian Braun, 2006. "Core Labour Standards and FDI: Friends or Foes? The Case of Child Labour," SFB 649 Discussion Papers SFB649DP2006-014, Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.
  7. Vimefall, Elin, 2011. "What determines which children work? Empirical evidence from Kenya," Working Papers 2011:3, Örebro University, School of Business.
  8. Marcio Gold Firmo & Rodrigo R. Soares, 2011. "Uma Análise Da Transmissãointergeracional De Capital Humano No Brasil," Anais do XXXVIII Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 38th Brazilian Economics Meeting] 228, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pósgraduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
  9. Connie Bayudan-Dacuycuy & Lawrence Dacuycuy, 2013. "Is schooling forever doomed with child labor around? An analysis using Philippine time use data," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 33(1), pages 138-151.

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