The impact of child work on cognitive development: results from four Low to Middle Income countries

In this IFS Working Paper, the authors study the relationship between child work and cognitive development in four Low and Middle Income Countries. They address a key weakness in the literature by including children’s full time-use vector in the analysis, which leads to different findings from previous studies which do not distinguish between alternative counter-factual activities. They find child work is only detrimental if it crowds out school/study time rather than leisure. Furthermore, the marginal effects of substituting domestic chores or economic activities for school/study time are similar. Thus, they conclude that policies to enhance child development should target a shift from all forms of work toward educational activities. 

You can read the article, published in 2018, here