Do International Labor Standards Contribute to the Persistence of the Child Labor Problem? In recent years, a number of governments and consumer groups in rich countries have tried to discourage the use of child labor in poor countries through measures such as product boycotts and the imposition of international labor standards. The purported objective of such measures is to reduce the incidenc...

Child Labor Variation by Type of Respondent: Evidence from a Large-Scale Study This study uses a nationally representative survey to analyze a key survey design decision in child labor measurement: self-reporting versus proxy interviewing. The child/proxy disagreement affects 20 percent of the sample, which translates into a 17.1 percentage point difference in the national rate of child labor b...

Some studies on child labor have shown that, at the level of the household, greater land wealth leads to higher child labor, thereby casting doubt on the hypothesis that child labor is caused by poverty. This paper argues that the missing ingredient may be an explicit modeling of the labor market. We develop a simple model which suggests the possibility of an inverted-U relationship between lan...

There is little evidence in Brazil on the impact of child labor on health status in adulthood. This study aimed to investigate trends in child labor in Brazil and estimate the long-term effects of child labor on the health of Brazilian adults, using nationally representative databases (Brazilian National Household Sample Survey) from three different years (1998, 2003, and 2008). The models were...

This paper investigates the impact of various economic measures on child labor in an open dual economy. We construct a small open economy model with heterogeneity of households in terms of location of residency and income. A part of households with low income supplies child labor when they reside in the rural area. The measures we will mainly consider are trade policies (e.g. import tariff and ...

Do employers substitute adults for children, or do they treat adults as complements to children? Any policy to reduce child labor depends on the answer to this question, but any empirical strategy to answer it must overcome two obstacles: (1) whatever program reduces child labor supply must have no direct impact on adult labor demand. (2) Any program that changes child labor supply will almost ...

The paper uses an overlapping generations model to examine the effects of an increase in a household’s land ownership on child labor. Consistent with previous studies, it is found that small increases in land lead to increased child labor. However, as land continues to increase child labor declines. Further, even when an increase in land ownership causes an immediate rise in child labor, there ...

Examining child labor through the lenses of weak agency, distributive inequality, and harm suggests that not all work performed by children is equally morally objectionable. Some work, especially work that does not interfere with or undermine their health or education, may allow children to develop skills they need to become well-functioning adults and broaden their future opportunities. Other ...