Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics

This paper investigates how child labor and schooling are responsive to opportunities to work, in particular to opportunities provided by children’s own parents. The paper demonstrates that after controlling for household, parental, regional, and child characteristics, children whose parents are self-employed or employers are more likely to work than children of employees, irrespective of the sector of parent activity. Furthermore, the paper also confirms a recent finding that children from areas with high average adult employment rates are more likely to work than children from areas with low average adult employment rates. Finally, since twice as many children of the selfemployed and employers both work and go to school as those of employees, the paper suggests that child labor does not necessarily represent a trade off with schooling as it depends on the occupation of the parents.