The Impact of Public School Enrolment on Child Labor in Punjab, Pakistan

Hamna Ahmed ()
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Hamna Ahmed: Senior Research and Teaching Fellow, Centre for Research in Economics and Business (CREB), Lahore School of Economics, Pakistan.

Lahore Journal of Economics, 2012, vol. 17, issue 2, 1-34

Abstract: This paper investigates the causal impact of public school enrolment on child labor. Our main hypothesis is as follows: Is school enrolment a substitute for child labor? Recognizing that schooling and work choices are jointly determined by parents in a utility maximizing framework, the study applies an instrumental variable solution to the problem of simultaneity. This approach entails using the receipt of free textbooks and access to a public primary facility as instruments for public school enrolment. Using data from the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey for 2007/08, our working sample consists of children between 5 and 14 years of age, which makes up 25 percent of the surveyed population. The results suggest that public school enrolment can be used as a substitute for child labor. On average, a 1 percentage point increase in a household’s enrolment ratio has the potential to reduce the number of hours of paid labor by almost 5 percentage points, ceteris paribus. This substitutability is highest among poor, urban, male children. Moreover, the incidence of child labor is higher among larger poor families.

Keywords: Child labor; school enrolment; instrumental variable; tobit; fixed effects; education subsidy; Pakistan. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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