Health Effects of Children’s Work: Evidence from Vietnam
Understanding Children's Work Programme Working Paper, April 2003
38 Pages Posted: 7 Mar 2011 Last revised: 8 Mar 2011
Date Written: April 2003
Abstract
We test whether work in childhood impacts on health. We focus on agricultural work, the dominant form of child work worldwide. Data are from the Vietnam Living Standards Survey, 1992-93 and 1997-98. We correct for both unobservable heterogeneity and simultaneity biases. Instruments include small area labour market and education conditions obtained from community level surveys. We use three indicators of health: body mass index; reported illness; and, height growth. There is clear evidence of a healthy worker selection effect. We find little evidence of a contemporaneous impact of child work on health but work undertaken during childhood raises the risk of illness up to five years later and the risk is increasing with the duration of work. There is no evidence that work impedes the growth of the child.
Keywords: child labour, health, agricultural work, healthy worker selection effect, Vietnam
JEL Classification: J13, I1, Q12, J28
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?
Recommended Papers
-
Does Globalization Increase Child Labor? Evidence from Vietnam
By Eric V. Edmonds and Nina Pavcnik
-
Child Labor: The Role of Income Variability and Access to Credit in a Cross-Section
By Rajeev H. Dehejia and Roberta Gatti
-
Export Structure, FDI and Child Labour
By Matthias Busse and Sebastian Braun