Economic ripple effects of social protection and parental education on child labour and school attendance in Malawi

Purpose Malawi is a low-income, agrarian economy in which most households depend on rain-fed subsistence farming and remain exposed to recurrent food insecurity. In this setting, child labour often functions as a household coping strategy that substitutes for school attendance. This study aims to examine the economic ripple effects of parental education and social protection on child labour and school attendance in Malawi. Design/methodology/approach Using data from the Malawi Integrated Household Survey and the World Bank Living Standards Measurement Study (2019–2020), the study estimates a linear probability model and then recovers causal estimates via Instrumental Variable (two-stage least squares) regression, instrumenting parental education with grandparental literacy to correct for endogeneity. Findings The study finds that parental education significantly reduces casual (“ganyu”) child labour (mother: 1.5 percentage points; father: 2.3 percentage points per year of schooling), because more educated parents earn higher incomes and consequently rely less on children’s labour. Only maternal education raises school attendance (0.8–2.1 percentage points per year); father’s education has a small but statistically significant effect on reducing farm work (1.2 percentage points per year, p < 0.05), whereas mother’s education has no significant effect on farm work. The policy implication is straightforward: education policy alone cannot eliminate farm-based child labour; complementary social protection measures are required, including cash transfers, school feeding programmes, food assistance, agricultural input subsidies, public works programmes, child benefits and livelihood support for poor rural households as well as expanding father education, and maternal education is effective in reducing casual child labour and raising school attendance. Research limitations/implications The two-year panel cannot capture how recurrent climatic shocks, including droughts, floods and cyclones, erode the documented gains over time. Moreover, the absence of direct social protection programme participation data in the survey instrument precludes direct estimation of interaction effects between income transfers and parental education within a unified econometric framework. Practical implications Reducing farm-based child labour requires income–support interventions, such as lean-season transfers, rather than education policy alone; reducing casual labour is achievable through expanded parental education access. Social implications Given Malawi’s persistent gender gap in schooling, the maternal education effect on attendance points to female education as a practical lever against intergenerational poverty. Originality/value This study extends the analysis to the most recent available household panel (2019–2020) and makes three original contributions: it provides updated causal estimates using grandparental literacy as an instrument; it demonstrates that the effects of parental education are heterogeneous across labour types (casual versus farm work) and by parent’s gender; and it situates these findings within a joint social-protection and human capital policy framework, clarifying where investment in parental schooling can, and cannot, substitute for direct income support.