Child Labor : The Role of Income Variability and Access to Credit in a Cross-Section of Countries
Even though access to credit is central to child labor theoretically, little work has been done to assess its importance empirically. Dehejia and Gatti examine the link between access to credit and child labor at a cross-country level. The authors...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2013
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2002/01/1687160/child-labor-role-income-variability-access-credit-cross-section-countries http://hdl.handle.net/10986/15753 |
| Summary: | Even though access to credit is central
to child labor theoretically, little work has been done to
assess its importance empirically. Dehejia and Gatti examine
the link between access to credit and child labor at a
cross-country level. The authors measure child labor as a
country aggregate, and proxy credit constraints by the level
of financial market development. These two variables display
a strong negative (unconditional) relationship. The authors
show that even after they control for a wide range of
variables-including GDP per capita, urbanization, initial
child labor, schooling, fertility, legal institutions,
inequality, and openness-this relationship remains strong
and statistically significant. Moreover, they find that, in
the absence of developed financial markets, households
resort to child labor to cope with income variability. This
evidence suggests that policies aimed at increasing
households' access to credit could be effective in
reducing child labor. |
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