Child Labour and Access to Basic Services : Evidence from Five Countries

Analyses of the determinants of child labour have largely neglected the role of access to basic services. The availability of these services can affect the value of children’s time and, concomitantly, household decisions concerning how this time is allocated between school and work. This paper investigates the link between child labour and water and electricity access in five countries – El Salvador, Ghana, Guatemala, Morocco and Yemen. Employing an econometric methodology based on propensity scores for dealing with the potential endogeneity of access to water and electricity, average treatment effects for water and electricity access on children’s activities are presented. The marginal effects of water and electricity access on children’s activities obtained by estimating a bivariate probit model are also examined. Finally, a sensitivity analysis is presented designed to check the robustness of the conclusions concerning the causal relationship between water and electricity access and children’s activities