Leveling the Intra-household Playing Field: Compensation and Specialization in Child Labor Allocation

Ximena Del Carpio () and Karen Macours

No 4822, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: This paper analyzes changes in the allocation of child labor within the household in reaction to exogenous shocks created by a social program in Nicaragua. The paper shows that households that randomly received a conditional cash transfer compensated for some of the intra-household differences, as they reduced child labor more for older boys who used to work more and for boys who were further behind in school. The results also show that households that randomly received a productive investment grant, in addition to the basic conditional cash transfer benefits, both targeted at women, show an increased specialization of older girls in nonagricultural and domestic work, but no overall increase in girls' child labor. The findings suggest that time allocation and specialization patterns in child labor within the household are important factors to understand the impact of a social program.

Keywords: Child labor; intra-household; human capital; impact evaluation; gender (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D13 J16 J22 J24 O12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2009-02-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

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Related works:
Chapter: Leveling the intra-household playing field: compensation and specialization in child labor allocation (2010)
Working Paper: Leveling the Intra-household Playing Field: Compensation and Specialization in Child Labor Allocation (2010)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4822

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