Eric V. Edmonds

Government-initiated community resource management and local resource extraction from Nepal's forests

This paper considers the effect on local resource extraction of an ambitious, government initiated community forestry program in Nepal. Beginning in 1993, the government of Nepal began to transfer all accessible forestland from the national government to local communities by creating local groups of forest users. This study uses institutional details about the implementation of this program to evaluate its impact on the extraction of wood for fuel. Transferring forests to local groups of forest users is associated with a significant reduction in resource extraction in communities that receive new forest user groups.

Child labor in transition in Vietnam

Vietnam experienced a dramatic decline in child labor during the 1990s. The authors explore this decline in detail and document the heterogeneity across households in both levels of child labor and in the incidence of this decline in child labor. The authors find a strong correlation between living standards improvements and child labor so that much of the variation in declines in child labor can be explained by variation in living standards improvements. Ethnic minority children and the children of recent migrants appear to remain particularly vulnerable even by the late 1990s. Children of all ethnicities in the Central Highlands appear to have missed many of the improvements in the 1990s, while children in the rural Mekong and in Provincial Towns have experienced the largest declines in child labor. The results suggest embedding efforts against child labor within an overall antipoverty program. The authors find that the opening or closing of household enterprises seems to be associated with increases in child labor. So attention should be devoted to the activities of children in the governments current program to stimulate nonfarm enterprises.

Reconsidering the labeling effect for child benefits: evidence from a transition economy

I consider expenditure on food, alcohol and tobacco, and clothing in households with children in Slovenia at the start of its transition to a market economy. I exploit the unique structure of its child benefit program in order to look for evidence that labeling a cash transfer a child benefit influences how that cash transfer is spent. Contrary to much of the recent literature on the non-fungibility of income, I do not find evidence supporting a labeling effect.

Child Labour in South Asia

The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that 19% of children aged 5-14 in Asia and the Pacific are economically active (ILO, 2002). These 127.3 million children constitute 60% of all child labourers worldwide. The aim of this study is to better understand child labour in South Asia through in-depth case studies of the child labour experience in three countries: Nepal, Pakistan, and Vietnam. Several themes about child labour emerge in examining data from these three countries. First, any discussion of child labour needs to consider wage work as well as unpaid work including household production activities. Children who work in one type of activity are more likely to work in other activities as well. Thus, focusing on only one aspect of child employment seriously understates child labour supply. Second, there is some evidence of important substitutions of child and adult labour across different household activities that may be very costly for the welfare of the ... Selon les estimations de l’Organisation mondiale du travail (OIT), dans la region Asie-Pacifique, 19 % des enfants âges de 5 a 14 ans exercent une activite economique (OIT, 2002). Ce chiffre, qui correspond a 127.3 millions d’enfants, represente 60 % de l’ensemble des petits travailleurs a l’echelle internationale. La presente etude a pour objectif de mieux comprendre le travail des enfants en Asie du Sud. Pour ce faire, des etudes de cas approfondies ont ete effectuees a partir des constatations faites dans trois pays : le Nepal, le Pakistan et le Viet-Nam. Lorsqu’on examine les donnees provenant de ces trois pays, on peut degager plusieurs aspects relatifs au travail des enfants. La presente etude constate que tout examen sur ce theme doit prendre en compte le travail remunere ainsi que le travail non remunere, y compris les activites de production domestique. La probabilite est plus grande que les enfants exercant un type d’activite travaillent egalement dans d’autres ...

Child Labor and Schooling in A Globalizing World: Some Evidence from Urban India

Trade influences child time allocation in developing countries through its effects on the returns to education, labor demand, and poverty. We examine how Indias dramatic 1991 trade liberalization influenced child labor and schooling in urban areas of India that differ in the extent to which employment lost tariff protection. In general, urban India experienced large increases in schooling and decreases in child labor over the 1990s. We find that these improvements are attenuated in Indian cities where employment experienced larger reductions in tariff protection. Girls are particularly affected. We argue that the observed changes in child time allocation are consistent with differential declines in poverty across regions, but changes in the economic opportunities of children might also play a role in our findings. (JEL: F15, F16) (c) 2009 by the European Economic Association.

Chapter 57 Child Labor

Abstract In recent years, there has been an astonishing proliferation of empirical work on child labor. An Econlit search of keywords “child lab*r” reveals a total of 6 peer reviewed journal articles between 1980 and 1990, 65 between 1990 and 2000, and 143 in the first five years of the present decade. The purpose of this essay is to provide a detailed overview of the state of the recent empirical literature on why and how children work as well as the consequences of that work.

Economic Influences on Child Migration Decisions: Evidence from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh

Why do young children migrate without a parent? We consider the economic components of the answer to this question by examining the correlates of out-migration for children under 15 whose mothers reside in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, India. 1 million children appear to have migrated away from home in our data. On average 3 percent of living children 5-14 in our communities are away from home, but the fraction of out-migrant children ranges between 0 and 29 percent. We find that the data are consistent with a classical view of migration: children on average appear to migrate out of competitive, rural child labor markets for net financial gain. The costs of migration are important. Children are less likely to migrate from more remote locations. Children are less likely to migrate from locations where child wages are higher. Overall, patterns of child migration away from their mothers look similar to what other researchers have observed in adult populations in different social and economic contexts.

Selection into worst forms of child labor

Little is known about why children participate in activities that are labeled worst forms of child labor (WFCL). Case–control approaches common in medicine are adapted to consider the correlates of participation in worst forms in the context of two WFCL in Nepal: portering and ragpicking. Paternal disability is a strong predictor of entry into each of the worst forms, and the presence of productive assets within the childs home reduces the risk a child is observed in a worst form. We argue that our findings are consistent with a model where there are negative amenities associated with these jobs that induce the poor and those with the fewest alternative earnings options to select into these WFCL in Nepal.

Household Composition and the Response of Child Labor Supply to Product Market Integration: Evidence from Vietnam

Market integration raises the relative price of a communitys export product. The author examines how the response of child labor supply to an increase in the relative price of a primary export product varies with a childs household composition. The specific context for his study is the liberalization of rice markets in Vietnam in the 1990s. Between 1993 and 1998, Vietnam lifted export restrictions on rice, allowing the domestic price to rise toward international levels, and eliminated internal restrictions on the flow of rice between regions of Vietnam. So, the relative price of rice increased overall in Vietnam, but the degree of price change varied across communities with the lifting of restrictions on internal flows. The author finds that the response of child labor supply to rice price increases is increasing the amount of time children work. Thus, household composition attributes that are associated with higher levels of child labor are also associated with larger declines in child labor with rice price increases. The results are consistent with girls particularly benefiting from product market integration because they work more than boys do. The results suggest that economic factors associated with economic reform may attenuate differences in the activities of siblings that are typically associated with cultural traditions and norms.

Independent child labor migrants

Children living and working away from home are some of the most vulnerable in society. Parents, family, friends, and home communities provide protections that reduce a child’s susceptibility to abuse, exploitation, and the consequences of bad or poorly informed decisions. This chapter reviews the nascent literature on the prevalence, causes, and consequences of independent child labor migration. Measurement challenges have constrained progress on understanding this phenomenon. There is considerable scope for future research to transform how we think about issues related to the millions of children living and working away from their parents.