an Eldis Resource
Does globalization increase child labour?: evidence from Vietnam
Increases in commodity prices reduce child labour in Vietnam
Authors:
E. Edmonds; N. Pavcnik
Publisher:
National Bureau of Economic Research, USA, 2002
This paper considers the impact of liberalized trade policy on child labour in Vietnam. The authors exploit regional and intertemporal variation in the real price of rice to examine the relationship between price movements of a primary export and the economic activities of children.
The main findings are that:
- reductions in child labour are increasing with rice prices
- declines in child labour are largest for girls of secondary school age, and there is a corresponding increase in school attendance for this group
Overall, rice price increases can account for almost half of the decline in child labour that occurs in Vietnam in the 1990s. Greater market integration, at least in this case, appears to be associated with less child labor. The results suggest that the use of trade sanctions on exports from developing countries to eradicate child labour is unlikely to yield the desired outcome [adapted from author].
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