Does Globalization Increase Child Labor? Evidence from Vietnam
Eric V. Edmonds
Dartmouth College - Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
Dartmouth College - Department of Economics; Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
NBER Working Paper No. w8760
This paper considers the impact of liberalized trade policy on child labor in a developing country. While trade liberalization entails an increase in the relative price of the exported product, trade theory provides ambiguous predictions on how this price change affects the incidence of child labor. In this paper, we exploit regional and intertemporal variation in the real price of rice to examine the relationship between price movements of a primary export and the economic activities of children. Using a panel of Vietnamese households, we find that reductions in child labor are increasing with rice prices. Declines in child labor are largest for girls of secondary school age, and we find a corresponding increase in school attendance for this group. Overall, rice price increases can account for almost half of the decline in child labor that occurs in Vietnam in the 1990s. Greater market integration, at least in this case, appears to be associated with less child labor. Our results suggest that the use of trade sanctions on exports from developing countries to eradicate child labor is unlikely to yield the desired outcome.
Number of Pages in PDF File: 51working papers series
Date posted: February 2, 2002
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