The link between poverty and child labor has traditionally been regarded as well established but recent researches have questioned its validity, suggesting that child labor is more important in the richest households (wealth paradox). The present study revisits the link between poverty and farm child labor in Africa and aims at testing the paradoxical wealth effect. Using different modeling techniques, the analysis focuses on family-controlled child labor taking place in the cocoa sector of Côte d’Ivoire. The results reveal that the effect of different commonly used wealth proxies have opposite effects on child labor participation and are sometimes sensitive to the modeling technique. This mixed result is the root of the apparent wealth paradox found in the literature. However, relevant and robust wealth proxies clearly indicate a positive relationship between poverty and child labor. The study therefore sustains that the apparent wealth paradox found in the literature is the end result of a bad orthodoxy.
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Publisher Info
Paper provided by University Library of Munich, Germany in its series MPRA Paper with number
15105.
Length: Date of creation: 2006 Date of revision: Publication status: Published in African Journal of Economic Policy 1.13(2006): pp. 1-24 Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:15105
Find related papers by JEL classification: O15 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity D10 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - General C25 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Discrete Regression and Qualitative Choice Models
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Anne Case & Christina Paxson & Joseph Ableidinger, 2002.
"Orphans in Africa,"
NBER Working Papers
9213, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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