Free education helps combat child labor? : the effect of a free compulsory education reform in rural China
Can Tang, Liqiu Zhao, Zhong Zhao
This paper evaluates the effect of a free compulsory education reform in rural China on the incidence of child labor. We exploit the cross-province variation in the roll-out of the reform and apply a difference-in-differences strategy to identify the causal effects of the reform. We find that the exposure to the free compulsory education significantly reduces the incidence of child labor for boys, but has no significant effect on the likelihood of child labor for girls. Specifically, one additional semester of free compulsory education decreases the incidence of child labor for boys by 8.3 percentage points. Moreover, the negative effect of the reform on the likelihood of child labor is stronger for boys from households with lower socioeconomic status. Finally, the free compulsory education reform may induce parents to reallocate resources towards boys within a household and thus may enlarge the gender gap in human capital investment.
Year of publication: |
May 2019
|
---|---|
Authors: | Tang, Can ; Zhao, Liqiu ; Zhao, Zhong |
Publisher: |
Bonn, Germany : IZA - Institute of Labor Economics |
Subject: | free compulsory education reform | child labor | son preference | rural China | China | Kinderarbeit | Child labour | Ländlicher Raum | Rural area | Bildungsreform | Education reform | Schulbesuch | School attendance | Bildungspolitik | Education policy | Bildungschancen | Equality of opportunity in education | Bildungsverhalten | Educational behaviour |
Saved in:
freely available
Extent: | 1 Online-Ressource (circa 43 Seiten) |
---|---|
Series: | Discussion paper series / IZA. - Bonn : IZA, ZDB-ID 2120053-1. - Vol. no. 12374 |
Type of publication: | Book / Working Paper |
Type of publication (narrower categories): | Graue Literatur ; Non-commercial literature ; Arbeitspapier ; Working Paper |
Language: | English |
Other identifiers: | hdl:10419/202720 [Handle] |
Classification: | I28 - Government Policy ; I38 - Government Policy; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs ; O20 - Development Planning and Policy. General |
Source: | ECONIS - Online Catalogue of the ZBW |
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012019315