Children's Work and Schooling : Does Gender Matter? Evidence from the Peru LSMS Panel Data
Using panel data from Peru, the author investigates the determinants of the allocation of boys' and girls' time to schooling, housework, and income-generating activities. Specifically, she explores whether sickness, female headship, acces...
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| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2014
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2001/12/1660280/childrens-work-schooling-gender-matter-evidence-peru-lsms-panel-data http://hdl.handle.net/10986/19336 |
| Summary: | Using panel data from Peru, the author
investigates the determinants of the allocation of
boys' and girls' time to schooling, housework, and
income-generating activities. Specifically, she explores
whether sickness, female headship, access to infrastructure,
and employment of women in the household have different
impacts on the time use of boys and girls. Girls mostly
engage in housework, and boys mostly work outside the home.
As a work activity, housework responds to economic
incentives and constraints. The author's econometric
findings suggest that changes in household welfare affect
girls' work and schooling more than boys'. Even
though boys' and girls' educational attainment
rates are the same, girls' education responds more to
changes in household welfare than does boys'.
Similarly, girls are more likely than boys to adjust their
home time in response to changes in adult female employment
and to sickness of household members. Lack of access to
energy infrastructure lowers the educational attainment of
both boys and girls but has little affect on their labor.
The traditional approach to the determinants of child labor
and education excludes housework and may understate
children's time use, particularly that of girls. It may
therefore also overlook an important gender dimension of
education policy. Safety nets that protect household incomes
from employment shocks and sickness, and childcare programs
that allow women to work, would reduce the likelihood of
girls being pulled out of school. |
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