IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pas/papers/2025-04.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Anticipating unintended consequences of policy: Learnings from Indonesia's child labor reform

Author

Listed:
  • Elghafiky Bimardhika
  • Firman Witoelar

Abstract

We study the causal effects of a labor law that governs child workers on labor market outcomes and the well-being of individuals. We exploit the timing of the national legislation to identify the causal effects of child labor reform using the Regression Discontinuity Design. We find that individuals who entered adulthood after the reform are less likely to have participated in the labor market during childhood. The reform also lowers the likelihood of poor health and improves the probability of working in paid jobs when children have reached adulthood. Our heterogeneity analysis highlights the importance of complementing regulation with enforcement and support programs to minimize unintended consequences that plagued many similar reforms.

Suggested Citation

  • Elghafiky Bimardhika & Firman Witoelar, 2025. "Anticipating unintended consequences of policy: Learnings from Indonesia's child labor reform," Departmental Working Papers 2025-04, The Australian National University, Arndt-Corden Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:pas:papers:2025-04
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://crawford-prod.anu.edu.au/sites/default/files/2025-02/ACDE%20T%26D%20BimardhikaWitoelar%20Feb%202025-04.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C21 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models
    • J08 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics Policies
    • J80 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Standards - - - General
    • I15 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Economic Development
    • I25 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Economic Development
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:pas:papers:2025-04. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Prema-chandra Athukorala (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/asanuau.html .

    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.