The Joint Estimation of Child Participation in Schooling and Employment: Comparative Evidence from Three Continents

This paper uses data from Peru, Pakistan and Ghana to analyse simultaneously child labour and child schooling, and compares them between these countries. We use a multinomial logit estimation procedure that analyses the participation and non-participation of children in schooling and in employment and, in particular, allows the possibility that a child combines schooling with employment or does neither. We also use an ordered probit estimation procedure based on a ranking of the various child schooling/employment/non-schooling/non-employment outcomes. The results point to both similarities and striking dissimilarities in the nature of child labour and child schooling between the chosen countries. For example, in Pakistan, but not in Peru, the girl child's ordering of schooling/employment outcomes shows her at a position of extreme disadvantage. Household poverty discourages a child from achieving superior outcomes, but the effect varies markedly across the three countries.     

Determinants of Schooling in Egypt: The Role of Gender and Rural/Urban Residence

In this paper, we examine if there are gender differences in schooling attainment and the extent to which these differences are exacerbated for rural children in Egypt. Using a nationally representative cross-sectional survey, our estimation results find strong support for the hypothesis that being male and living in urban areas significantly improves child schooling. We show that relative to a female child who is “never enrolled” in school, a male child is over twice as likely to be currently attending school, and over two-and-a-half times more likely to have some schooling. These positive effects are particularly strong for rural male children. There are also regional variations, with a child (male or female) living in Upper Rural Egypt having a significantly lower likelihood of being currently enrolled. Finally, our estimation results point to large positive effects of father's education on the probability of current enrolment for all children. Mother's education, however, improves only the likelihood of current enrolment for female children, with no significant effect on male children.     

Estimates of Mincerian Returns to Schooling in Nigeria

In the face of declining rates of primary and secondary school enrolment and increasing post-secondary school enrolment rates, the Nigerian government introduced the free universal basic education programme in 1999. To understand better the economic forces underlying the recent trends in school enrolment rates and appraise the new education policy from the perspective of private efficiency returns, I estimate the private returns to schooling associated with levels of educational attainment for wage and self-employed workers using data from the General Household Survey. The estimates for both men and women are small at primary and secondary levels, 2–3% and 4%, respectively, but are substantial at post-secondary education level, 10–15%. Inter-generational returns to schooling decline for primary education but rise for post-secondary education. These schooling return estimates may account for the recent trends in school enrolments. Thus, increasing public investment to encourage increased attendance in basic education is not justifiable on grounds of private efficiency, unless investments to increase school quality have higher private returns. With high private returns to post-secondary schooling, students at this level should pay tuition to recoup more of the public costs of schooling, which may be redistributed to poor families through scholarships.     

Modeling farmers' decisions on child labor and schooling in the cocoa sector: a multinomial logit analysis in Côte d'Ivoire

Since 2000, children working in the cocoa sector of Côte d'Ivoire have found themselves in the media spotlight. This situation has assumed particular importance because approximately 40% of the world's cocoa production occurs in Côte d'Ivoire. Concerned parties have since taken great interest in this thorny issue. There is a need to better understand the reality of child labor utilization in this sector. This article investigates child labor issues in the cocoa sector of Côte d'Ivoire in conjunction with schooling status of children. The study is based on a survey done in 2002, over a representative sample of more than 11,000 members of cocoa households. The multinomial logit model is used to capture choice probabilities across work and/or school options. The results reveal that child labor in cocoa farms and nonenrollment in schools are significant. Moreover, many children are involved in potentially dangerous and/or harmful tasks. Data also highlight gender and age dimensions in the participation of children in tasks and the way labor is allocated. Econometric results generally indicate that the gender and age of children, whether or not the child is the biological child of the household head, parents' education, the origin of the farmer, household welfare, household size, the household dependency ratio, the size of other perennial crop farms, the number of sharecroppers working with the household head, and communities' characteristics are all pertinent in explaining the child work/schooling outcome in the cocoa sector of Côte d'Ivoire.     

Does Conservation Agriculture Change Labour Requirements? Evidence of Sustainable Intensification in Sub-Saharan Africa

Population growth, increasing wealth and changing diets require agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa to intensify to meet future food demand and ensure food security in the region. Conservation agriculture can increase yields in the long run and reduce the negative environmental impacts of intensive farming. In changing the mix of resources used and how they are managed, the adoption of conservation agriculture can have a direct impact on farm labour. We study the relationship between conservation agriculture and labour input requirements as observed in five Sub-Saharan African countries. We focus on the amount of work required and the source of the work employed (household or hired, by gender, by children and by production stage). We apply multinomial endogenous switching regression models on a panel of household and farm data from Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. We find that conservation agriculture increases farms’ labour input requirements. Higher demand is driven by more work during the harvesting and threshing stages. Increases in labour requirements are usually met by household labour, not paid work. The workload change is also higher for women than for men, and, in certain cases, is met by children.     

Farm work, off-farm work, and hired farm labour: estimating a discrete-choice model of French farm couples' labour decisions

We model jointly several types of discrete-choice labour decisionsof farm couples: farm work, off-farm work and hired farm labour.Rather than estimating a set of reduced-form participation equationsthat is subject to an internal inconsistency problem, we estimatea 16-choice multinomial model. We find that farm labour of operatorsand of spouses are substitutes. Hired farm labour increaseswith the farmer's qualifications, perhaps substituting for thecouple's labour inputs. Other adults in the household substitutefor the farm labour input of the farm couple and hired workers.We find that the organisation of work by French farm householdshas changed over time, in the direction of a more equal sharingof tasks and responsibilities between members of the farm family.     

Changes in Human Capital and Wage Inequality in Mexico

Over the last two decades, Mexico has witnessed a significant increase in wage inequality, typically attributed to the increase in relative demand for skilled labour. Over this period, educational achievements and their distribution across the labour force have also changed substantially. In this paper, the impact of changes in human capital on wage inequality in Mexico is analysed. The analysis focuses on decomposing the level of inequality in any given year and the change in inequality over time into observable (e.g. age, education, etc.) and unobservable differences across workers. The main findings of this paper are that unobservable factors account for most of the inequality in any given year; among the observable factors, human capital emerges as the most important variable explaining the level of inequality in any given year, and, further, it is the changes in human capital, specifically the returns to education, that are mainly responsible for the observed changes in inequality.     

Number,Age Composition and School Achievements of Siblings in Two African Capital Cities

This paper uses biographical data from Dakar and Yaoundé, two large African cities, to study the link between number of siblings and school attainment. The data describe all fertility events experienced by parents and the number of siblings of each child over time. The average family size effect is estimated first. The family size effect at different ages is then estimated. The results show that, in Dakar, both the overall and age-specific effect of family size on education are negative and statistically significant. In Yaoundé, the overall effect is not significant, but negative effects at some schooling ages (between 14 and 17) are observed in this study. Finally, the negative impact of family size on school achievement seems to be driven more by elder siblings than by younger ones.     

Where Does Education Pay Off in Sub-Saharan Africa? Evidence from Two Cities of the Republic of Congo

Using first-hand data from the 2009 Employment and Informal Sector Survey (EESIC) in the two largest cities of the Republic of Congo, Brazzaville and Pointe-Noire, we analyze the impact of education on labour market outcomes, and identify the segments where education pays off the most. Multivariate analyses of the risk of unemployment and sectoral choice indicate that young people face serious difficulties in the labour market: for most of them, their only choice is to remain unemployed or to join the informal sector. To measure the specific impact of schooling on earnings, we address issues related to sample selection and endogeneity of education in the earnings function. The results shed light on heterogeneity in the returns to schooling across the two main cities and institutional sectors. An important finding is that the informal sector does not systematically lag behind the formal sectors in terms of returns to education. We emphasize convex returns to education, meaning that the last years in secondary and tertiary schooling yield the highest returns, while those of primary education are generally lower. This convexity is also apparent in the informal sector, where education (albeit on another scale) again appears as an important determinant of earnings.     

Cultural norms,economic incentives and women’s labour market behaviour: empirical insights from Bangladesh

This paper sets out to explore a seeming puzzle in the context of Bangladesh. There is a considerable body of evidence from the country pointing to the positive impact of paid work on women’s position within family and community. Yet, according to official statistics, not only has women’s labour force participation risen very slowly over the years, but also a sizeable majority of women in the labour force are in unpaid family labour. We draw on an original survey of over 5000 women from eight different districts in Bangladesh to explore some of the factors that lead to women’s selection into the labour force, and into different categories of labour market activity, with a view to gaining a better understanding of the combination of cultural norms and economic considerations that explain these findings.     

Assessing the Impact of the ‘Decoupling’ Reform of the Common Agricultural Policy on Irish Farmers’ Off‐farm Labour Market Participation Decisions

This paper assesses the impact of the ‘decoupling’ reform of the Common Agricultural Policy on the labour allocation decisions of Irish farmers. The agricultural household decision‐making model provides the conceptual and theoretical framework to examine the interaction between government subsidies and farmers’ time allocation decisions. The relationship postulated is that ‘decoupling’ of agricultural support from production would probably result in a decline in the return to farm labour but it would also lead to an increase in household wealth. The effect of these factors on how farmers allocate their time is tested empirically using labour participation and labour supply models. The models developed are sufficiently general for application elsewhere. The main findings for the Irish situation are that the decoupling of direct payments is likely to increase the probability of farmers participating in the off‐farm employment market and that the amount of time allocated to off‐farm work will increase.     

Economic factors affecting human fertility in the developing areas of Southern Africa

South Africa's annual population growth rate, in the traditional sector, is 3.5% (1980-2000), a rate similar to those experienced in the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, and over which the World Bank has expressed concern. For the purposes of this study, economic factors explaining family size choice in the traditional sector were examined and linkages between family size decisions and socio-economic variables analysed. Household utility was maximised subject to resource constraints of time, labour and income, from which a demand curve for children was derived with emphasis on the opportunity cost of wives' time and the quantity-quality trade-off for children. A stratified sampling technique was used to collect data from KwaZulu households in South Africa. Regression analysis was used to estimate the demand function and principal components analysis confirmed the underlying theoretical linkages. Results show that wife's education (expected income or opportunity cost), child help (benefits) and desired family size were important explanatory variables. Three components extracted represented the substitution effect, the income effect and child investment theory. Results show that investment in education, taken as a proxy for expected earnings, is a strong policy option for reducing family size.     

'They Used To Go to Eat, Now They Go to Earn': The Changing Meanings of Seasonal Migration from Puruliya District in West Bengal, India

This article uses migrant workers' testimonies to analyse whether and how much the act of migrating seasonally for wage work has contributed to changing social relations. We investigate changes in the meaning of this kind of migration to workers involved in it over their working lives. The emergence of peasant capitalism in West Bengal from the 1970s resulted in more days work and higher wages for migrant workers. This made it possible for wage workers to view migration as a way of earning and accumulating a useful lump sum, rather than simply surviving through food payments during the period of work, as had taken place in the past. However, there was no general move away from the compulsion to earn a wage through hard manual labour. Through the testimonies, we explore the ambivalence of migrant workers towards changes in the relations of production at home and at the destination workplace.     

Simultaneous estimation of work choices and the level of farm activity using panel data

We analyse the simultaneous determination and evolution overtime of work choices and the level of farm activity, using apanel of Israeli farm households. We estimate jointly a multinomialchoice model of work activity and an endogenous switching regressionof farm size, accounting for unobserved heterogeneity and correctingfor simultaneity bias. Our results imply that some family farmstend to expand over time and specialise in farming, whereasother farm households downsize their farming operation and increasetheir engagement in the off-farm labour market. Therefore, thesize distribution of farms is converging towards a bimodal distribution.     

Restructuring palm oil value chain governance in Colombia through long-term labour control

In this paper, I argue that the cumulative effects of coercive and indirect labour discipline enable firms to reorganize production. Through a historical analysis of the palm oil industry in northeastern Colombia, I identify changing forms of value chain governance in relation to transformations in labour control regimes. The combined effects of multiple labour control strategies have weakened labour power and workers' overall possibilities to shape value chain governance. In this case, labour coercion directly diminished workers' associational power and enabled labour flexibilization in the industry, limiting workers' structural power. A dialogue between the Global Value Chains framework and Critical Agrarian Studies, with a focus on labour regimes, highlights that labour flexibilization can build on past instances of coercive control to transform the structure of a value chain. This research illustrates that coercion is not necessarily “extra-economic” but is often intrinsic to the organization of the global economy.     

Wage returns to education in Ethiopia

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we aim to provide robust estimates of wage returns to education in Ethiopia. Previous estimates vary widely based on the scope and size of the study sample, variables employed, and estimation method. We use two recent rounds of national labour force survey data and a pseudo- (or synthetic) panel framework to address the well-known potential endogeneity of schooling in wage regressions. Birth-year cohort based pseudo-panel estimate of the return to an additional year of education is between 14 percent and 16 percent, 4 to 5 percentage points higher than that from ordinary least squares (OLS). The significant downward bias in OLS is further confirmed by two-year pseudo-panel estimates and remains robust, to a large extent, as we use an alternate model, change the estimation sample, and address selection bias concurrently with endogenous schooling using a novel approach. We discuss some possible explanations in the context of Ethiopia.     

Between construction yard and village: Changing relations of caste and hierarchy among Madhya Pradesh's labouring classes

In Madhya Pradesh, India, rural migrant workers hired in flyover's construction yards experiment a space of work where the social practices relating to caste separation and hierarchy are temporally softened. This paper shows that these processes of conviviality, through mixing between castes and trans-communitarian work identities based on the hierarchies of labour, are taking part in the lower classes' long quest for less oppressive labour relations. Starting from the construction yard, and then going to the village, this paper shows that the labour relations involved in the circulation of rural migrants to the flyover construction yards are contributing to shaping their complex and flexible social consciousness in a context of slow reconfiguration of oppressive rural labour relations.     

Structural transformation in emerging economies: leading sectors and the balanced growth hypothesis

The paper uses the World Input-Output Database to address patterns of structural transformation in BRIC countries, Indonesia, South Korea, Mexico and Turkey. Sectoral drivers of aggregate labour productivity growth, and the relative importance of within-sector versus employment reallocation effects on aggregate labour productivity growth, are evaluated using growth accounting decomposition methods. Decomposition results are used to assess how patterns of structural transformation relate to macroeconomic performance in terms of aggregate labour productivity, output and employment growth. Together with the construction of ‘Hirschman compliance indices’, decomposition results are also used to shed light on the balanced versus unbalanced growth debates. The paper goes on to assess the extent of complementarities between manufacturing and information and communications technology-intensive advanced services through intermediate inputs, comparing the eight emerging countries with G7 countries over time.     

Off-farm labour allocation decisions in small-scale rural households in Zimbabwe

The double hurdle model is used to analyse the off‐farm labour decisions of small‐scale agricultural household members in the Shamva District of Zimbabwe. The approach permits the joint modelling of the decision to participate in the labour market and the decision regarding the amount of time allocated to work. Results indicate that a number of variables (notably, gender, education and assets) indeed have effects which are qualitatively and quantitatively different in terms of participation and hours worked. Overall, the empirical analysis confirms the importance of individual characteristics (such as gender and education) and household/farm characteristics (e.g. land area accessible to the household, productive assets, remittances and the agricultural terms of trade) in influencing the labour market decisions of rural household members.     

Economic Development,Inequality and Poverty: An Analysis of Urban Violence in Colombia

This paper analyses some determinants of urban violence in seven major Colombian cities. The empirical research is intended to explore variations in violence across these Colombian cities and the influence of these variations on Colombia's economic development. In this study, several econometric data panel models and various estimate types are applied to control heterogeneity across the cities and to address endogeneity problems among the explanatory variables. The results show that education, poverty, inequality and the labour market are strong predictors of homicide rates in the seven Colombian cities. The results also demonstrate that city-level homicide rates depend on the city's level of development and the tendency of urban violence to persist over time. The findings thus demonstrate that factors such as inequality, poverty, education and the labour market influence urban violence, thereby generating negative effects on Colombia's economic and social development.