Household Composition and the Response of Child Labor Supply to Product Market Integration : Evidence from Vietnam

Edmonds, Eric V.

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ACCOUNT;    CHILD LABOR;    CHILD PARTICIPATION;    CHILD WORKERS;    CONSUMER PRICE INDEX;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-3235
RP-ID  :  WPS3235

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Market integration raises the relativeprice of a community's export product. The authorexamines how the response of child labor supply to anincrease in the relative price of a primary export productvaries with a child's household composition. Thespecific context for his study is the liberalization of ricemarkets in Vietnam in the 1990s. Between 1993 and 1998,Vietnam lifted export restrictions on rice, allowing thedomestic price to rise toward international levels, andeliminated internal restrictions on the flow of rice betweenregions of Vietnam. So, the relative price of rice increasedoverall in Vietnam, but the degree of price change variedacross communities with the lifting of restrictions oninternal flows. The author finds that the response of childlabor supply to rice price increases is increasing theamount of time children work. Thus, household compositionattributes that are associated with higher levels of childlabor are also associated with larger declines in childlabor with rice price increases. The results are consistentwith girls particularly benefiting from product marketintegration because they work more than boys do. The resultssuggest that economic factors associated with economicreform may attenuate differences in the activities ofsiblings that are typically associated with culturaltraditions and norms.