Child labor and household wealth: Theory and empirical evidence of an inverted-U

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Basu, Kaushik; Das, Sanghamitra; Dutta, Bhaskar
• 署名单位: Cornell University; Indian Statistical Institute; Indian Statistical Institute Delhi; University of Warwick
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3878
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2009.01.006
• 发表日期: 2010
• 页码: 8-14
• 关键词: child labor; Land-holding; labor markets

摘要

Some studies on child labor have shown that, at the level of the household, greater land wealth leads to higher child labor, thereby casting doubt on the hypothesis that child labor is caused by poverty. This paper argues that the missing ingredient may be an explicit modeling of the labor market. We develop a simple model which suggests the possibility of an inverted-U relationship between land holdings and child labor. Using a unique data set that has child labor hours it is found that, controlling for child, household and village characteristics, the turning point beyond which more land leads to a decline in child labor occurs around 4 ac of land per household. (C) 2009 Published by Elsevier B.V.