Evidence of the Impact of Children’s Household Chores and Market Labour on Learning from School Census Data in Brazil

Demand for informal caregiving and human capital accumulation: Evidence from elderly deaths in Senegal

“…They call for additional research on the effectiveness of interventions aimed at reshaping these norms from an early age (see Dhar, Jain, and Jayachandran 2022, for a recent example). Finally, this article fits in more generally with the rich empirical literature on the impacts of child labor on education (Ravallion and Wodon 2000;Heady 2003;Canals-Cerda and Ridao-Cano 2004;Gunnarsson, Orazem, and Sánchez 2006;Beegle et al 2008;Beegle, Dehejia, and Gatti 2009;Bezerra, Kassouf, and Arends-Kuenning 2009;Assaad, Levison, and Zibani 2010;Buonomo Zabaleta 2011;Dumas 2012;Emerson, Ponczek, and Souza 2017;Kassouf, Tiberti, and Garcias 2020). It is one of the rare contributions documenting the impacts of household production on schooling outcomes (previous contributions include Assaad, Levison, and Zibani 2010;Kassouf, Tiberti, and Garcias 2020) and extends the literature by highlighting the impacts of caregiving as a specific type of domestic work.…”

“…Dumas (2012) finds that past years of work have a positive impact on children's learning in Senegal. However, the bulk of the child labor literature points to a small but negative effect of economic activities on school enrolment, educa-tional attainment and learning due to reduced time for school attendance and studying at home (Akabayashi and Psacharopoulos 1999;Gunnarsson, Orazem, and Sánchez 2006;Beegle, Dehejia, and Gatti 2009;Assaad, Levison, and Zibani 2010;Emerson, Ponczek, and Souza 2017;Kassouf, Tiberti, and Garcias 2020). What seems likely in the case of elderly adult deaths is that some of the girls who are exposed to this shock increase their hours of work while others spend more time in school.…”

“…Third, even in situations where female children were able to conduct caregiving work without missing school, caregiving could still compete with time dedicated to homework and affect learning and educational attainment through this channel. There is evidence in the empirical literature that schoolchildren who work underperform in reading and mathematics tests, even when they mainly supply household work (Kassouf, Tiberti, and Garcias 2020).…”

Walking for water and fuelwood: Welfare implications for women and children in Ghana

“…Sometimes, children are pulled out of school to assist with fetching water or fuel wood or engage in childcare, while mothers go in search of water and fuelwood for the household (Koolwal & van de Walle, 2013) therefore, is reduced school attendance and performance among children (Levison et al, 2018). Kassouf et al (2020) and Choudhuri and Desai (2021) also reported similar findings on the negative effect of house chores on children's health and education outcomes in Brazil and rural India, respectively.…”

Children’s Work in African Agriculture

“…The home environment may be more benign, but children will still be exposed to hazards and potential harm. Participation in household chores has been found to be associated with less time spent in school and corresponding lower academic achievements (Dinku et al, 2019;Kassouf et al, 2020), and an analysis of Young Lives data from Ethiopia found that 4+ hours per day of household chores had a large negative effect on children's body mass index (BMI) (Dinku et al, 2019).…”