Addressing child labor with layered interventions: a study of the PACE program’s impact on child’s schooling and work in Ethiopia

• PACE raised rural school attendance: targeted children were 3.2 times more likely to attend school. • No effect was found for urban areas or for siblings of targeted children within the same households or communities. • Total child work did not decline over the study period. • External paid work fell by 58% as children shifted toward family-based activities; wellbeing effects remain unclear. • Community-level awareness campaigns alone showed no significant effects on school attendance or child labor outcomes. This study evaluates the impact of the Partnership Against Child Exploitation (PACE) program in Ethiopia, an initiative aimed at reducing child labor and increasing school attendance in vulnerable communities. The program identified a child in a family, at risk or involved in worst forms of child labor. The program’s design incorporated support to income generating activities and savings systems at the family level, educational assistance at the child level, and community awareness campaigns. We study the effectiveness of the PACE program employing a randomized controlled trial design with a large sample size and minimal attrition, enabling to causally assess the program’s impact on both schooling and work-related outcomes. We use multi-level modeling to account for the three levels of intervention (family, child and community) Our study finds that the PACE program significantly increased school attendance among rural children directly targeted by the intervention. However, the program did not impact school attendance in urban areas or among siblings and other children in rural communities. Additionally, while the program did not reduce the likelihood of child labor or the number of hours children spent working per day, it reduced the incidence of work outside the household for all children in supported families.