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Poverty alleviation and child labor

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  • Edmonds, Eric V.
  • Schady, Norbert

Abstract

Does child labor decrease as household income rises? This question has important implications for the design of policy on child labor. This paper focuses on a program of unconditional cash transfers in Ecuador. It argues that the effect of a small increase in household income on child labor should be concentrated among children most vulnerable to transitioning from schooling to work. The paper finds support for this hypothesis. Cash transfers have small effects on child time allocation at peak school attendance ages and among children already out of school at baseline, but have large impacts at ages and in groups most likely to leave school and start work. Additional income is associated with a decline in paid work that takes place away from the child's home. Declines in work for pay are associated with increases in school enrollment, especially for girls. Increases in schooling are matched by an increase in education expenditures that appears to absorb most of the cash transfer. However, total household expenditures do not increase with the transfer and appear to fall in households most impacted by the transfer because of the decline in child labor.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by The World Bank in its series Policy Research Working Paper Series with number 4702.

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Date of creation: 01 Aug 2008
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Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4702

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Keywords: Street Children; Youth and Governance; Gender and Law; Labor Policies; Primary Education;

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References

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Citations

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Cited by:
  1. Manfred Gärtner, 2011. "Labor Market Integration and Its Effect on Child Labor," Atlantic Economic Journal, International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 39(2), pages 165-170, June.
  2. Kondylis, Florence & Manacorda, Marco, 2010. "School Proximity and Child Labor: Evidence from Rural Tanzania," CEPR Discussion Papers 7890, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  3. Clemens, Michael A. & Tiongson, Erwin R., 2012. "Split decisions : family finance when a policy discontinuity allocates overseas work," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6287, The World Bank.
  4. Sarah Baird & Craig McIntosh & Berk �zler, 2011. "Cash or Condition? Evidence from a Cash Transfer Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 126(4), pages 1709-1753.
  5. Bruno Teodoro Oliva & André Portela Fernandes De Souza & Vladimir Pinheiro Ponczek, 2011. "Os Determinantes Do Fluxo Escolar Entreo Ensino Fundamental E O Ensino Médio No Brasil," Anais do XXXVIII Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 38th Brazilian Economics Meeting] 165, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pósgraduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
  6. Nicola Brandt, 2012. "Reducing Poverty in Chile: Cash Transfers and Better Jobs," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 951, OECD Publishing.
  7. Bruno Martorano & Chris De Neubourg & Marco Sanfilippo & UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, 2012. "The Impact of Social Protection on Children: A review of the literature," Innocenti Working Papers inwopa666, UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre.

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