Child Labor and the Arrival of Refugees: Evidence from Tanzania

Chiara Kofol and Maryam Naghsh Nejad

No 11242, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: The impact of hosting refugees on child labor in host countries is unclear. This paper estimates both the short and the long term consequences of hosting refugees fleeing from the genocides of Rwanda and Burundi in the Kagera region of Tanzania between 1991 and 2004. The study uses longitudinal data from the Kagera Health and Development Survey. Using the exogenous nature of refugee settlement in Kagera due to geographic and logistical reasons, we find the causal impact of hosting refugees on child labor and children's schooling outcomes. The results suggest that the impact of hosting refugees on children living in Kagera decreases child labor in the short run (between 1991 and 1994), but increases it in the longer run (1991–2004). The results are heterogeneous across gender and age. The study aims at understanding the mechanisms behind the variation in child labor outcome due to the forced migration shock exploring various channels.

Keywords: school attendance; child labor; forced migration; human capital (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J13 O15 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38 pages
Date: 2017-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab and nep-mig
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published - published in: Journal of African Economies, 2022, 31 (5), 467–486

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp11242.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:iza:izadps:dp11242

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany
library@iza.org

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte (hinte@iza.org).