Cross-Country Analysis of Children that Work: Commonalities and Differences Across Costa Rica, Ecuador, Malawi, Rwanda, India, Nepal, and the Philippines

Abstract Child labor is a long-lasting problem in less-developed countries. It limits education outcomes, human capital development, and prolongs poverty. As a multicausal problem, contextual differences play a major role in the difficulty of eradicating. This paper employs novel primary data collected across seven countries with child labor prevalence and in very different contexts. The research questions explore how family income and education of the head of the household correlate with their children’s schooling, labor, and health outcomes. The findings suggest that income is the main predictor of child labor across diverse vulnerable groups and backgrounds. Our results also provide evidence that there are no other consistent relationships between socioeconomic status, education, and child labor outcomes across the seven countries, highlighting the importance of crafting tailored child labor policy based on idiosyncratic factors, over a more general or standardized policy adoption.