Child Labour in Peru: An Empirical Analysis and its Modelling implications

There has been growing interest in the subject of child labour among academics, professionals and the media. Notwithstanding almost universal agreement that child labour is undesirable, there is wide disagreement on how to tackle this problem. The formulation of policies that are effective in curbing child labour requires an analysis of its key determinants, and such an analysis of Peruvian child labour is the motivation of the present study. There has been, in recent years, a rapidly expanding literature on child labour — see Grootaert and Kanbur (1995), Basu (1999) for surveys. While certain studies, for example Knight (1980) and Horn (1995), mainly discussed the qualitative features of child labour, the recent literature has focused attention on the quantitative aspects taking advantage, as in Patrinos and Psacharopoulos (1997), of the increasing availability of good quality data on child employment. The present study is in line with this recent literature. Keeping in mind the close connection between education and employment, we prepared regression estimates of child participation in schooling and in the labour market, paying special attention to the interaction between the two. Our study also included tobit estimates of child labour hours in Peru regressed on a selection of personal, family and community characteristics. and compares them with those of Ghanaian child labour hours.1