Why Is Child Labor Illegal? We present a theory of the emergence of laws restricting child labor or imposing mandatory education that is consistent with the fact that poor parents tend to oppose such laws. We find that if altruistic parents are unable to commit to educating their children, child-labor laws can increase the welfare of higher-income parents in an ex ante sense. On the basis of an...

We explore the impact of the child care tax credit in the U.S. income tax system on the labor supply decisions of married women with young children by incorporating the cost of child care into a structural labor supply model. Using data from the 1986 NLSY, we find that government subsidies to child care increase labor supply substantially. Our policy simulations show that an increase in the val...

Why Is Child Labor Illegal? We present a theory of the emergence of laws restricting child labor or imposing mandatory education that is consistent with the fact that poor parents tend to oppose such laws. We find that if altruistic parents are unable to commit to educating their children, child-labor laws can increase the welfare of higher-income parents in an ex ante sense. On the basis of an...

Child labor is a topic that evokes deep emotions and a growing international concern. Most recent ILO estimates show that some 211 million children between 5 and 14 are engaged in some form of economic activity, and 119 million of them are engaged in haz­ ardous work. The poverty implications of child labor are often transmitted from parents to children, a process that is called the dynastic po...

This paper examines inter-generational persistence in child labor by developing a dynamic model and exploring its implications empirically in Brazil. We begin by building an overlapping generations model of the household child labor decision. We assume that this decision is made by the head of the household, where parents decide to send their child to work only if by doing so the child’s contri...

This paper we examine intra-household gender differences and the incidence of child labor and children’s school attendance in Brazil to test whether the unitary model of household allocations is suitable in the child labor context. We begin by building an intra-household allocation model where fathers and mothers may affect the education investment and the child labor participation of their son...

Using data from Peru and Pakistan, this article tests two hypotheses: there is a positive association between hours of child labor and poverty, and there is a negative association between child schooling and poverty. Both of these hypotheses are confirmed by the Pakistani data, but not by the Peruvian data. The reduction in poverty rates due to income from children’s labor is greater in Pakista...

Child labor is widespread in developing countries, but its causes are debatable. Poverty is considered the primary reason, but many theoretical and empirical analyses show that other factors, such as lack of access to credit, poor school quality, and labor market opportunities play equal or even greater roles in the decision to have children work. This study surveys the existing literature and,...

This paper examines the relationship between child labor and access to credit at a crosscountry level. Even though this link is theoretically central to child labor, so far there has been little work done to assess its importance empirically. We measure child labor as a country aggregate, and credit constraints are proxied by the extent of financial development. These two variables display a si...

This paper examines the relationship between child labor and access to credit at a crosscountry level. Even though this link is theoretically central to child labor, so far there has been little work done to assess its importance empirically. We measure child labor as a country aggregate, and credit constraints are proxied by the extent of financial development. These two variables display a st...