Idleness, Returns to Education and Child Labor

Although recent trends about child labor are positive, see ILO (2006), there still are important shortcomings which require further investigation. Among them, the exclusion of the category “idle children” (those who neither work nor study) from past studies, as well as the lack of reliable information on returns to education are two significant omissions. By using a data base that contains details on idle children and a proxy for the returns to education, we find evidence that confirms traditional findings both with regard to the strong positive effect of parental background and to the positive relationship between the number of children in the household and child labor. On the other hand, our estimates point out new insights, such as the great regional variation of estimates and the fact that the Body Mass Index effect is positive. Finally, we suggest a new perspective on the issue of “street children” through the analysis of the category of “idle children”