Kids at risk: children's employment in hazardous occupations in Brazil

Abstract

While the literature on child labor in Brazil is large, it is not comprehensive: in particular, there are few studies on children's work in risky occupations, and those that exist tend to be qualitative and based on limited samples. In this paper, we aim to paint a broader picture of children's engagement in risky labor force work, based on quantitative evidence from PNAD data. We document associations between parental characteristics and children's work, using both descriptive statistics and multivariate modeling to understand the determinants of child participation in risky labor force work. Brazilian children engaged in risky occupations are less likely than other employed children to be enrolled in school, and more likely to work long hours and experience a variety of working conditions that may be unsafe. Parental education, indicators of household wealth and owning a family farm are particularly strongly associated with the incidence of risky work among children, and girls are over-represented in risky jobs due to their work in domestic service. KeywordsChild Labor, Risky Work, Multivariate Models, Brazil ResumoA literatura a respeito do trabalho infantil no Brasil é vasta, porém mantém uma lacuna no que se refere ao trabalho considerado perigoso e como se dá a entrada das crianças nesse tipo de ocupação. O objetivo deste trabalho é investigar o trabalho infantil perigoso utilizando os dados da PNAD, complementando os estudos qualitativos já existentes, por meio de análises descritivas e um modelo multivariado. Palavras-ChaveTrabalho Infantil, Trabalho Perigoso, Modelos Multivariados, BrasilClassificação JEL J13

Parental Absence and Agency: The Household Characteristics of Hazardous Forms of Child Labour in Nepal

“…To my knowledge, DeGraff, Ferro and Levison (; ) is the only paper that has studied household characteristics of children working in risky industries using a large‐scale representative data set. They investigate the children in several hazardous industries using the Brazilian national representative survey Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicilios .…”

“…While the estimation approach is similar to DeGraff et al . (), the analysis in this paper disaggregates children with missing parents into three categories; independent children, children with a deceased father and children with an absent father.…”

In Harm's Way: Children's Work in Risky Occupations in Brazil

“…These studies, however, do not include a focus on hazardous work. In additional previous work on Brazil (DeGraff, Ferro & Levison, ), we estimate multinomial logit models of children's employment in risky work versus employment in other forms of work or not being employed. Key findings include that low levels of parental education or wealth, or owning a farm, are strongly related to a higher likelihood of children being employed in risky work.…”