From protection to reduction? The impact of the public health insurance scheme on child labour in Ghana

Christoph Strupat

No 16/2016, IDOS Discussion Papers from German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS)

Abstract: Using the fourth and fifth wave of the Ghanaian Living Standard Household Survey, I empirically investigate whether the implementation of the National Health Insurance Scheme affects child labour in Ghana. My findings suggest that the implementation of the insurance scheme leads to a decrease in out-of-pocket payments for health purposes, which is linked to a substantial reduction in the incidence of child labour. Furthermore, I find that the overall reduction in child labour is strongest in rural areas and the agricultural sector. I conclude that the provision of public health insurance improves the financial protection of households, which removes the necessity for households to send their children to work. Thus, health insurance schemes seem to be an effective social protection instrument to fight child labour.

Keywords: Armut und Ungleichheit; Soziale Sicherung und Inklusion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/199479/1/die-dp-2016-16.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:diedps:162016

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IDOS Discussion Papers from German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().