The Determinants of Child Labor and Schooling in the Philippines

The previous literature suggests that the determinants of child labor are largely country specific, indicating that any policies aimed at reducing child labor must look carefully at the causes of child labor in context. My thesis adds to the empirical work on child labor by investigating what household and community characteristics are most common among working children in the Philippines, using data collected by the International Labour Organization. I use a multinomial logit model with child activity as the dependent variable, where the three possible outcomes are work only, work and study, and study only. I find that poverty has a strong negative impact on the probability a child works full time or part time (relative to study only), especially in rural areas, as do the years of the household head’s education and having electricity and access to drinking water. Having a close biological relation to the head has a significantly positive effect on the probability of studying only for all groups of children, and especially for urban girls. The results also indicate that government programs like welfare and community organizations do little to reduce child labor, probably due to the lack of awareness among the majority of the populace.