Child Labor, Schooling, and Child Ability

Akresh, Richard ; Bagby, Emilie ; de Walque, Damien ; Kazianga, Harounan

关键词: ACCOUNT;    ACHIEVEMENT;    ACHIEVEMENT TESTS;    AVERAGE SCORE;    BEHAVIORAL DEVELOPMENT;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-5965
RP-ID  :  WPS5965

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Using data collected in rural BurkinaFaso, this paper examines how children's cognitiveabilities influence households' decisions to invest intheir education. To address the endogeneity of child abilitymeasures, the analysis uses rainfall shocks experienced inutero or early childhood to instrument for ability. Negativeshocks in utero lead to 0.24 standard deviations lowerability z-scores, corresponding with a 38 percent enrollmentdrop and a 49 percent increase in child labor hours comparedwith their siblings. Negative education impacts are largestfor in utero shocks, diminished for shocks before age two,and have no impact for shocks after age two. The paper linksthe fetal origins hypothesis and sibling rivalry literaturesby showing that shocks experienced in utero not only havedirect negative impacts on the child's cognitiveability (fetal origins hypothesis), but also negativelyimpact the child through the effects on sibling rivalryresulting from the cognitive differences.