Advanced Search

Health Effects of Child Work: Evidence from Rural Vietnam

Contents:

Author Info

  • Owen A O'Donnell

    () (University of Macedonia)

  • Furio C. Rosati

    () (UCW Project)

  • Eddy van Doorslaer

    () (Erasmus University Rotterdam - Department of Health Policy and Management)

Abstract

We test whether work in childhood impacts on health. We focus on agricultural work, the dominant form of child work worldwide. Data are from the Vietnam Living Standards Survey, 1992-93 and 1997-98. We correct for both unobservable heterogeneity and simultaneity biases. Instruments include small area labour market and education conditions obtained from community level surveys. We use three indicators of health: body mass index; reported illness; and, height growth. There is clear evidence of a healthy worker selection effect. We find little evidence of a contemporaneous impact of child work on health but work undertaken during childhood raises the risk of illness up to five years later and the risk is increasing with the duration of work. There is no evidence that work impedes the growth of the child.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: ftp://www.ceistorvergata.it/repec/rpaper/No-53-Rosati-ODonnel-VanDoorslaer.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Tor Vergata University, CEIS in its series CEIS Research Paper with number 53.

Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML (with abstract), plain text (with abstract), BibTeX, RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite), ReDIF
Length: 38
Date of creation: 07 Apr 2004
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:rtv:ceisrp:53

Contact details of provider:
Postal: CEIS - Centre for Economic and International Studies - Faculty of Economics - University of Rome "Tor Vergata" - Via Columbia, 2 00133 Roma
Phone: +390672595601
Fax: +39062020687
Email:
Web page: http://www.ceistorvergata.it
More information through EDIRC

Order Information:
Postal: CEIS - Centre for Economic and International Studies - Faculty of Economics - University of Rome "Tor Vergata" - Via Columbia, 2 00133 Roma
Email:
Web: http://www.ceistorvergata.it

For corrections or technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Barbara Piazzi).

Related research

Keywords: Child labour; health; Vietnam;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References

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.:
  1. Eric Edmonds, 2007. "Child Labor," Working Papers id:988, eSocialSciences.
  2. Kaushik Basu, 1999. "Child Labor: Cause, Consequence, and Cure, with Remarks on International Labor Standards," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(3), pages 1083-1119, September.
  3. Lahiri, Kajal & Schmidt, Peter, 1978. "On the Estimation of Triangular Structural Systems," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(5), pages 1217-21, September.
  4. Hideo Akabayashi & George Psacharopoulos, 1999. "The trade-off between child labour and human capital formation: A Tanzanian case study," The Journal of Development Studies, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 35(5), pages 120-140.
  5. O.O'Donnel & F.Rosati & E.van Doorslaer, 2002. "Child Labour and Health: Evidence and Research Issues," UCW Working Paper 1, Understanding Children's Work (UCW Programme).
  6. Eric Edmonds & Nina Pavcnik, 2002. "Does Globalization Increase Child Labor? Evidence from Vietnam," NBER Working Papers 8760, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  7. Immink, Maarten D. C. & Payongayong, Ellen, 1999. "Risk analysis of poor health and growth failure of children in the central highlands of Guatemala," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 48(8), pages 997-1009, April.
  8. Edmonds, Eric & Turk, Carrie, 2002. "Child labor in transition in Vietnam," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2774, The World Bank.
  9. George Psacharopoulos, 1997. "Child labor versus educational attainment Some evidence from Latin America," Journal of Population Economics, Springer, vol. 10(4), pages 377-386.
  10. Grossman, Michael, 1972. "On the Concept of Health Capital and the Demand for Health," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 80(2), pages 223-55, March-Apr.
  11. Fentiman, Alicia & Hall, Andrew & Bundy, Don, 2001. "Health and cultural factors associated with enrolment in basic education: a study in rural Ghana," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 52(3), pages 429-439, February.
  12. Alessandro Cigno, 1998. "Fertility decisions when infant survival is endogenous," Journal of Population Economics, Springer, vol. 11(1), pages 21-28.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
Cited by:
  1. Vincenzo Atella & Mariacristina Rossi, 2010. "Child labor, school attendance and access to health care services by children: evidence from Ghana," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 178, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
  2. Eric V. Edmonds, 2007. "Child Labor," NBER Working Papers 12926, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  3. Bezerra, Márcio Eduardo G. & Kassouf, Ana Lucia & Arends-Kuenning, Mary P., 2009. "The Impact of Child Labor and School Quality on Academic Achievement in Brazil," IZA Discussion Papers 4062, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  4. 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.
  5. Chen, Yi & Lei, Xiaoyan & Zhou, Li-An, 2010. "Child Health and the Income Gradient: Evidence from China," IZA Discussion Papers 5182, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  6. Kimhi, Ayal, 2007. "Does Land Reform In Transition Countries Increase Child Labor? Evidence From The Republic Of Georgia," Discussion Papers 7147, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Department of Agricultural Economics and Management.
  7. Eric V. Edmonds & Nina Pavcnik, 2005. "Child Labor in the Global Economy," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(1), pages 199-220, Winter.
  8. Furio Rosati & Roland Straub, 2007. "Does work during childhood affect the health of Guatemalan adults?," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 83-94, March.
  9. J. French, 2010. "Children’s Labor Market Involvement, Household Work, and Welfare: A Brazilian Case Study," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 92(1), pages 63-78, March.

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:rtv:ceisrp:53

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Barbara Piazzi).

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.