Child labor in Bolivia: schooling, gender and ethnic groups

Even tough child labor is a wide spread phenomena in Bolivia, little is known about its main determinants. By using a bivariate probit model in order to take into account the joint nature of the decisions between labor and schooling, this paper investigates which are the key factors that influence the probability that a child works. The available information for the year 2001 allow us to make a comparative analysis between an “exclusive†definition of labor, which refers only to market oriented tasks, and an “inclusive†definition of labor, which also takes into account household duties. The results show that if we use the “exclusive†definition, the girl’s participation rate on the labor market is underestimated. Many types of segregation of the data have been performed, which enable us to identify that exogenous factors affect children in different ways, depending on the geographical area of the household, the gender and the ethnic background of the children. We were able to identify that the most vulnerable group are indigenous children and in particular indigenous girls. Conversely high education of the head of the family lowers the probability that a child works