Is There a Child Labor Trap? Intergenerational Persistence of Child Labor in Brazil

Child labor is a widespread phenomenon in the world, occurring predominantly in developing countries. In economics, much of the recent theoretical literature has focused attention on the fact that the decision to send children to work is most likely made not by the children themselves but by households who do so out of dire need. This paper examines the intergenerational persistence of child labor empirically by looking at household survey data from Brazil. The examination is begun by building an overlapping generations model of the household child labor decision, and by examining empirical evidence from Brazil. Evidence of persistence in child labor is searched for by examining the household survey data from Brazil. It is found that people who start work as children end up with lower earnings as adults. There may be a critical level of resources needed to extract families from the child labor trap. The most appropriate policy response may be to concentrate on the condition of each family rather than focusing on individual children.