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

Abstract

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.

Child labor as a barrier to foundational skills: Evidence from Bangladesh and Pakistan

“…Most studies showed that child labor was negatively associated with children’s educational outcomes, including their academic achievement. These findings were consistent across multi-country studies (Delprato & Akyeampong, 2019 ; Lee et al, 2021 ) and single-country studies, such as Emerson et al ( 2014 ) in Brazil and He ( 2016 ) in China. For example, the study of 10 francophone West and Central African countries by Lee et al ( 2021 ) found that child labor (measured as any work outside the household) undermined academic achievement regardless of subject, gender, and age.…”

“…We found a few single-country studies from Latin America, including studies from Colombia (Emerson et al, 2014 ) and Brazil (Guarcello et al, 2005 ). Most recently, Delprato and Akyeampong ( 2019 ) expanded this sample to include Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay, and produced the largest cross-national analysis on the subject from Latin America. In Africa, a recent large, cross-country study by Lee et al ( 2021 ) used data from Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Niger, Senegal, and Togo.…”

“…A vast majority of the studies (except two) we reviewed used school-based data, and by extension, school-based samples. Several of these studies (e.g., Delprato & Akyeampong, 2019 ; Lee et al, 2021 ; Orazem & Gunnarsson, 2004 ) also relied on large-scale testing efforts, including LLECE, Programme d’Analyse des Systèmes Educatifs de la CONFEME (PASEC), and TIMSS. While this allowed the authors to study a number of countries together, it also means that such studies focused on a higher-level skill set (typically measuring content knowledge at Grades 4, 6, or 8, depending on the survey) instead of on foundational learning, and thus these studies were unable to capture information on children who are not currently in school.…”

“…It lowered reading and mathematics scores for both genders and children under 12 and over 13 years. In a similarly large study of 15 Latin American countries, Delprato and Akyeampong ( 2019 ) found that student’s work (measured as work at home and outside home, regardless of payment) was a significant barrier hampering learning in the region, leading to lower math and reading achievement (by around 9 to 13 points) for working students. They found that the group of students most affected were those engaged in paid employment outside the household.…”

“…The nuance that those engaged in paid employment outside the household were more affected (Delprato & Akyeampong, 2019 ) and the distinction between working for a family enterprise versus a non-family enterprise in Indonesia (Sim et al, 2017 ) led us to another significant observation. We found that studies employed a range of different approaches to operationalize child labor.…”