IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/wdevel/v161y2023ics0305750x22002856.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Child labor among farm households in Mozambique and the role of reciprocal adult labor

Author

Listed:
  • Fumagalli, Laura
  • Martin, Thomas

Abstract

We test the impact of a reciprocal adult labor program, Ajuda Mútua (AM), on child labor and schooling. AM was introduced into the province of Nampula in Mozambique, an area where farm production relies on child labor, potentially due to labor and financial market failures. Using difference in differences, we estimate that AM reduces child labor by eight percentage points. We argue that AM reduces child labor by providing low-cost adult labor and potentially increasing farm productivity. We benchmark the AM results against the impact of Village Saving and Loan Associations (VSLA) and AM and VSLA in combination (VAM). Neither VSLA nor VAM reduce child labor. If credit is used in a way that increases labor demand beyond what can be accommodated by AM labor, child labor may increase. We conclude that addressing labor market failures may be more successful at reducing child labor than addressing financial market failures. Results on schooling are mixed.

Suggested Citation

  • Fumagalli, Laura & Martin, Thomas, 2023. "Child labor among farm households in Mozambique and the role of reciprocal adult labor," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:161:y:2023:i:c:s0305750x22002856
    DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2022.106095
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X22002856
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.worlddev.2022.106095?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ernst Fehr & Simon Gächter, 2000. "Fairness and Retaliation: The Economics of Reciprocity," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 159-181, Summer.
    2. Pascaline Dupas & Dean Karlan & Jonathan Robinson & Diego Ubfal, 2018. "Banking the Unbanked? Evidence from Three Countries," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(2), pages 257-297, April.
    3. Eric V. Edmonds & Norbert Schady, 2012. "Poverty Alleviation and Child Labor," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 4(4), pages 100-124, November.
    4. Lori Beaman & Dean Karlan & Bram Thuysbaert, 2014. "Saving for a (not so) Rainy Day: A Ramdomized Evaluation of Savings Groups in Mali," Working Papers 1043, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
    5. Dean Karlan & Martin Valdivia, 2011. "Teaching Entrepreneurship: Impact of Business Training on Microfinance Clients and Institutions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(2), pages 510-527, May.
    6. Alessandro Tarozzi & Jaikishan Desai & Kristin Johnson, 2015. "The Impacts of Microcredit: Evidence from Ethiopia," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(1), pages 54-89, January.
    7. Besley, Timothy & Coate, Stephen & Loury, Glenn, 1993. "The Economics of Rotating Savings and Credit Associations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(4), pages 792-810, September.
    8. Edmonds, Eric V. & Shrestha, Maheshwor, 2014. "You get what you pay for: Schooling incentives and child labor," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 196-211.
    9. Crepon,Bruno Jacques Jean Philippe & Premand,Patrick, 2018. "Creating new positions ? direct and indirect effects of a subsidized apprenticeship program," Policy Research Working Paper Series 8561, The World Bank.
    10. Basu, Kaushik & Das, Sanghamitra & Dutta, Bhaskar, 2010. "Child labor and household wealth: Theory and empirical evidence of an inverted-U," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 8-14, January.
    11. Kruger, Diana I., 2007. "Coffee production effects on child labor and schooling in rural Brazil," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 448-463, March.
    12. Hanan G. Jacoby & Emmanuel Skoufias, 1997. "Risk, Financial Markets, and Human Capital in a Developing Country," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 64(3), pages 311-335.
    13. Irineu Evangelista de Carvalho Filho, 2012. "Household Income as a Determinant of Child Labor and School Enrollment in Brazil: Evidence from a Social Security Reform," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 60(2), pages 399-435.
    14. Hazarika, Gautam & Sarangi, Sudipta, 2008. "Household Access to Microcredit and Child Work in Rural Malawi," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 843-859, May.
    15. Fafchamps, Marcel, 2010. "Vulnerability, risk management and agricultural development," African Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, African Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 5(1), pages 1-18, September.
    16. A. Colin Cameron & Jonah B. Gelbach & Douglas L. Miller, 2011. "Robust Inference With Multiway Clustering," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(2), pages 238-249, April.
    17. Jean-Marie Baland & Timothée Demont & Rohini Somanathan, 2018. "Child Labor and Schooling Decisions among Self-Help Groups Members in Rural India," Working Papers halshs-02579594, HAL.
    18. Britta Augsburg & Ralph De Haas & Heike Harmgart & Costas Meghir, 2015. "The Impacts of Microcredit: Evidence from Bosnia and Herzegovina," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(1), pages 183-203, January.
    19. Benjamin, Dwayne, 1992. "Household Composition, Labor Markets, and Labor Demand: Testing for Separation in Agricultural Household Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(2), pages 287-322, March.
    20. Kurosaki, Takashi & Fafchamps, Marcel, 2002. "Insurance market efficiency and crop choices in Pakistan," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 419-453, April.
    21. Eswaran, Mukesh & Kotwal, Ashok, 1986. "Access to Capital and Agrarian Production Organisation," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 96(382), pages 482-498, June.
    22. Jean-Marie Baland & Timothée Demont & Rohini Somanathan, 2020. "Child Labor and Schooling Decisions among Self-Help Group Members in Rural India," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 69(1), pages 73-105.
    23. Sonia Bhalotra & Christopher Heady, 2003. "Child Farm Labor: The Wealth Paradox," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 17(2), pages 197-227, December.
    24. Casey, Katherine, 2018. "Radical Decentralization: Does Community Driven Development Work?," Research Papers 3629, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    25. Manuela Angelucci & Dean Karlan & Jonathan Zinman, 2015. "Microcredit Impacts: Evidence from a Randomized Microcredit Program Placement Experiment by Compartamos Banco," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(1), pages 151-182, January.
    26. Fafchamps, Marcel, 2010. "Vulnerability, risk management and agricultural development," African Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, African Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 5(1), September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bang, James & Mitra, Aniruddha & Abbas, Faisal, 2023. "Remittances and Child Labor in Pakistan: A Tale of Complementarities," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1285, Global Labor Organization (GLO).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dammert, Ana C. & de Hoop, Jacobus & Mvukiyehe, Eric & Rosati, Furio C., 2018. "Effects of public policy on child labor: Current knowledge, gaps, and implications for program design," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 104-123.
    2. Congdon Fors, Heather, 2024. "Child Labour Background, Challenges, and the Role of Research in Achieving Sustainable Development Goal 8.7," Working Papers in Economics 840, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    3. Jinnat Ara & Dipanwita Sarkar & Jayanta Sarkar, 2021. "Like mother like daughter? Occupational mobility among children under asset transfer program in Bangladesh," QuBE Working Papers 061, QUT Business School.
    4. Eric V. Edmonds & Norbert Schady, 2012. "Poverty Alleviation and Child Labor," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 4(4), pages 100-124, November.
    5. André, Pierre & Delesalle, Esther & Dumas, Christelle, 2021. "Returns to farm child labor in Tanzania," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    6. Edmonds, Eric V., 2008. "Child Labor," Handbook of Development Economics, in: T. Paul Schultz & John A. Strauss (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 57, pages 3607-3709, Elsevier.
    7. Bang, James & Mitra, Aniruddha & Abbas, Faisal, 2023. "Remittances and Child Labor in Pakistan: A Tale of Complementarities," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1285, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    8. Jean-Marie Baland & Timothée Demont & Rohini Somanathan, 2018. "Child Labor and Schooling Decisions among Self-Help Groups Members in Rural India," Working Papers halshs-02579594, HAL.
    9. Jean-Marie Baland & Timothée Demont & Rohini Somanathan, 2020. "Child Labor and Schooling Decisions among Self-Help Group Members in Rural India," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 69(1), pages 73-105.
    10. Oryoie, Ali Reza & Alwang, Jeffrey & Tideman, Nicolaus, 2017. "Child Labor and Household Land Holding: Theory and Empirical Evidence from Zimbabwe," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 45-58.
    11. Del Carpio, Ximena V. & Loayza, Norman V. & Wada, Tomoko, 2016. "The Impact of Conditional Cash Transfers on the Amount and Type of Child Labor," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 33-47.
    12. Kozhaya, Mireille & Martinez Flores, Fernanda, 2020. "Schooling and child labor: Evidence from Mexico's full-time school program," Ruhr Economic Papers 851, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    13. Ban, Radu & Gilligan, Michael J. & Rieger, Matthias, 2020. "Self-help groups, savings and social capital: Evidence from a field experiment in Cambodia," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 174-200.
    14. Cai, Shu, 2020. "Migration under liquidity constraints: Evidence from randomized credit access in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    15. Lucia Dalla Pellegrina & Giorgio Di Maio & Paolo Landoni & Emanuele Rusinà, 2021. "Money management and entrepreneurial training in microfinance: impact on beneficiaries and institutions," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 38(3), pages 1049-1085, October.
    16. Emily Breza & Cynthia Kinnan, 2021. "Measuring the Equilibrium Impacts of Credit: Evidence from the Indian Microfinance Crisis," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 136(3), pages 1447-1497.
    17. N'dri, Lasme Mathieu & Kakinaka, Makoto, 2020. "Financial inclusion, mobile money, and individual welfare: The case of Burkina Faso," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(3).
    18. Jacobus de Hoop & Furio C. Rosati, 2014. "Cash Transfers and Child Labor," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 29(2), pages 202-234.
    19. Jonathan Fu & Annette Krauss, 2024. "Preparing fertile ground: how does the quality of business environments affect MSE growth?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 63(1), pages 51-103, June.
    20. Ahlin, Christian & Gulesci, Selim & Madestam, Andreas & Stryjan, Miri, 2020. "Loan contract structure and adverse selection: Survey evidence from Uganda," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 180-195.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Child labor; Schooling; Labor markets; Financial markets; Mozambique;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I25 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Economic Development
    • J43 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Agricultural Labor Markets
    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:161:y:2023:i:c:s0305750x22002856. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddev .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.