The effect of working on students’ learning in Latin America: Evidence from the learning survey TERCE

•Use data for 15 countries from Latin America (TERCE).•Investigate child work as barrier for learning.•Produce robust regional and country estimates – matching and bounding.•Look at the role of ability and quality of education and labour markets.•Found that student's work is still a significant barrier for learning in the region. There is limited comparable and robust research on the effect of children's work on learning for developing countries. We use matching techniques relying on rich information from the Third Regional Comparative and Explanatory Study (TERCE) for 15 Latin American countries and a bounding approach to account for unobservables. We find that work leads to 9 (math) and 13 (reading) points less in achievement for sixth grade students, with a significant variation within the learning distribution and between countries. Policies should prioritise low achievers, those in paid employment living in large urban areas, and factors driving work allocations within families.