Schooling and Child Labor: Evidence from Mexico’s Full-Time School Program
Child labor is a matter of international concern. This paper examines the effect of a program that extended the length of a school day from four to six or eight hours in Mexico, on school enrollment, time spent on schooling activities, and child labor of children aged 7 to 14. To identify the effect, we take advantage of the staggered implementation of the FTS program across municipalities. The results show that extending the school day has no effect on the probability of being enrolled in school, but a positive effect on the weekly hours allocated to schooling activities. When focusing on child labor, we find a reduction of 1.6 hours worked, mainly driven by a decrease in the probability of engaging in work by 6.3 percentage points. For boys, we observe a decrease in the probability of engaging in market work and for girls a decrease in the probability of engaging in domestic work.
JEL-Klassifikation: J13, J21, J22, O12