IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/wbecrv/v35y2021i4p872-891..html

Gender Bias in Agricultural Child Labor: Evidence from Survey Design Experiments

Author

Listed:
  • Jose Galdo
  • Ana C Dammert
  • Degnet Abebaw

Abstract

Agricultural labor accounts for the largest share of child labor worldwide. Yet, measurement of farm labor statistics is challenging due to its inherent seasonality, variable and irregular work schedules, and the varying saliencies of individuals’ work activities. The problem is further complicated by the presence of widespread gender stratification of work and social lives. This study reports the findings of three randomized survey design interventions over the agricultural coffee calendar in rural Ethiopia to address whether response by proxy rather than by self-report has effects on the measurement of child labor statistics within and across seasons. While the estimates do not report differences for boys across all seasons, the analysis shows sizable self/proxy discrepancies in child labor statistics for girls. Overall, the results highlight concerns on the use of survey proxy respondents in agricultural labor, particularly for girls. The main findings have important implications for policymakers about data collection in rural areas in developing countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Jose Galdo & Ana C Dammert & Degnet Abebaw, 2021. "Gender Bias in Agricultural Child Labor: Evidence from Survey Design Experiments," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 35(4), pages 872-891.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:wbecrv:v:35:y:2021:i:4:p:872-891.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/wber/lhaa021
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Marine JOUVIN, 2021. "Addressing social desirability bias in child labor measurement : an application to cocoa farms in Côte d’Ivoire," Bordeaux Economics Working Papers 2021-08, Bordeaux School of Economics (BSE).
    2. Koolwal, Gayatri B., 2021. "Improving the measurement of rural women's employment: Global momentum and survey priorities," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    3. Galdo, Jose C., 2021. "Using Bank Savings Product Design for Empowering Women and Agricultural Development," IZA Discussion Papers 14523, IZA Network @ LISER.
    4. Pierre E Biscaye & Dennis Egger & Utz J. Pape, 2025. "Adolescent Schooling and Adult Labor Supply: Evidence from COVID-19 School Closures and Reopenings in Kenya," Post-Print hal-05213752, HAL.
    5. Guilherme Lichand & Sharon Wolf, 2025. "Measuring Child Labor: The Who’s, the Where’s, the When’s, and the Why’s," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 20(6), pages 1-18, June.
    6. Nicola S. Pocock & Clara W. Chan & Cathy Zimmerman, 2021. "Suitability of Measurement Tools for Assessing the Prevalence of Child Domestic Work: A Rapid Systematic Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(5), pages 1-20, February.
    7. Masselus, Lise & Fiala, Nathan, 2024. "Whom to ask? Testing respondent effects in household surveys," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    8. Dammert, Ana C. & Galdo, Jose, 2021. "Assessing adult farm labor statistics: Evidence from a survey design experiment in Ethiopia," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 203(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • C8 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • Q12 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Micro Analysis of Farm Firms, Farm Households, and Farm Input Markets

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:wbecrv:v:35:y:2021:i:4:p:872-891.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/wrldbus.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.