Child Labor, School Attendance, and Intrahousehold Gender Bias in Brazil

Child Labor, School Attendance, and Intrahousehold Gender Bias in Brazil Patrick M. Emerson and Andre Portela Souza An extensive survey data set of Brazilian households is used to test whether intrahousehold gender bias affects the decisions of mothers and fathers to send their sons and daughters to...

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Main Authors:	Emerson, Patrick M., Souza, André Portela
Format:	Journal Article
Published:	World Bank 2012
Subjects:	account child health Child Labor Child Labour education investment Gender Bias parental education School Attendance schooling Younger children
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/4459

id	okr-10986-4459
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-44592021-04-23T14:02:17Z Child Labor, School Attendance, and Intrahousehold Gender Bias in Brazil Emerson, Patrick M. Souza, André Portela account child health Child Labor Child Labour education investment Gender Bias parental education School Attendance schooling Younger children Child Labor, School Attendance, and Intrahousehold Gender Bias in Brazil Patrick M. Emerson and Andre Portela Souza An extensive survey data set of Brazilian households is used to test whether intrahousehold gender bias affects the decisions of mothers and fathers to send their sons and daughters to work and to school. An intrahousehold allocation model is examined in which fathers and mothers may affect the education investment and the child labor participation of their sons and daughters differently because of differences in parental preferences or differences in how additional schooling affects sons' and daughters' acquisition of human capital. The results suggest that fathers generally have a greater impact on decisions about sons and mothers generally have a greater impact on decisions about daughters. These results support models of intrahousehold bargaining in the child labor and schooling decisions of a family, even though most theoretical work on child labor has assumed a unitary family model. This study uses Brazilian household survey data to estimate the impact of fathers' and mothers' education on the labor market status and school attendance of their sons and daughters separately. Bargaining models assume that household allocation outcomes reflect a bargaining process in which household members seek to allocate the resources they control to the goods that they individually prefer. 2 As male and female household heads may have different preferences in general, and different specific preferences for the outcomes for their children depending on the gender of the child, the allocation of resources within a household can be seen as the result of some kind of resolution of the preference differences of the male and female heads. Because the impact of both parents' human capital on the labor status and schooling of children is of primary concern, a sample of observations is used that has complete information on each parent's characteristics, including years of schooling. For example, if the policy goal is to reduce child labor, and child labor is predominantly a male activity in an economy, then the findings suggest that transfers allocated to the father may be more effective in reducing overall child labor than transfers to the mother. From a program effectiveness standpoint, it may be important to determine which parent receives the money, and how much they receive, based on the composition of the family and on the goals of the program. 2012-03-30T07:12:36Z 2012-03-30T07:12:36Z 2007-05-30 Journal Article World Bank Economic Review 1564-698X http://hdl.handle.net/10986/4459 CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank Journal Article Latin America & Caribbean Brazil
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
topic	account child health Child Labor Child Labour education investment Gender Bias parental education School Attendance schooling Younger children
spellingShingle	account child health Child Labor Child Labour education investment Gender Bias parental education School Attendance schooling Younger children Emerson, Patrick M. Souza, André Portela Child Labor, School Attendance, and Intrahousehold Gender Bias in Brazil
geographic_facet	Latin America & Caribbean Brazil
description	Child Labor, School Attendance, and Intrahousehold Gender Bias in Brazil Patrick M. Emerson and Andre Portela Souza An extensive survey data set of Brazilian households is used to test whether intrahousehold gender bias affects the decisions of mothers and fathers to send their sons and daughters to work and to school. An intrahousehold allocation model is examined in which fathers and mothers may affect the education investment and the child labor participation of their sons and daughters differently because of differences in parental preferences or differences in how additional schooling affects sons' and daughters' acquisition of human capital. The results suggest that fathers generally have a greater impact on decisions about sons and mothers generally have a greater impact on decisions about daughters. These results support models of intrahousehold bargaining in the child labor and schooling decisions of a family, even though most theoretical work on child labor has assumed a unitary family model. This study uses Brazilian household survey data to estimate the impact of fathers' and mothers' education on the labor market status and school attendance of their sons and daughters separately. Bargaining models assume that household allocation outcomes reflect a bargaining process in which household members seek to allocate the resources they control to the goods that they individually prefer. 2 As male and female household heads may have different preferences in general, and different specific preferences for the outcomes for their children depending on the gender of the child, the allocation of resources within a household can be seen as the result of some kind of resolution of the preference differences of the male and female heads. Because the impact of both parents' human capital on the labor status and schooling of children is of primary concern, a sample of observations is used that has complete information on each parent's characteristics, including years of schooling. For example, if the policy goal is to reduce child labor, and child labor is predominantly a male activity in an economy, then the findings suggest that transfers allocated to the father may be more effective in reducing overall child labor than transfers to the mother. From a program effectiveness standpoint, it may be important to determine which parent receives the money, and how much they receive, based on the composition of the family and on the goals of the program.
format	Journal Article
author	Emerson, Patrick M. Souza, André Portela
author_facet	Emerson, Patrick M. Souza, André Portela
author_sort	Emerson, Patrick M.
title	Child Labor, School Attendance, and Intrahousehold Gender Bias in Brazil
title_short	Child Labor, School Attendance, and Intrahousehold Gender Bias in Brazil
title_full	Child Labor, School Attendance, and Intrahousehold Gender Bias in Brazil
title_fullStr	Child Labor, School Attendance, and Intrahousehold Gender Bias in Brazil
title_full_unstemmed	Child Labor, School Attendance, and Intrahousehold Gender Bias in Brazil
title_sort	child labor, school attendance, and intrahousehold gender bias in brazil
publisher	World Bank
publishDate	2012
url	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/4459
_version_	1764391460103258112

Child Labor, School Attendance, and Intrahousehold Gender Bias in Brazil

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