The effect of early childhood malnutrition on child labor and schooling

This paper examines how physical stature of a child measured in terms of age standardized height influences his/her selection for family labor activities versus schooling in rural Ethiopia. In an environment where schooling opportunities are limited and child labor is widespread, parents may be tempted to keep those children who appear to be physically more robust to family labor activities or demand more of their after school time for family labor activities (even if they are allowed to attend school). This would mean that children who appear to be physically less fit (who, according to some literature, could also be cognitively weaker) may have better chance of attending school than those who are physically stronger. To examine how physical fitness influences a child’s selection for labor versus schooling activities, therefore, I estimate parametric and semi-nonparametric bivariate models using  malnutrition caused by exposure to weather shocks in early childhood as a source of identification for the child’s physical stature. I find no evidence that better physical stature of the child leads to higher probability of his/her selection for fulltime child labor activities. On the other hand I found reasonably strong evidence that physically more robust children are more likely to combine child labor and schooling than those who are physically less fit. The results are consistent across two different cohorts of children and two different identification strategies. The findings indicate that, although better early childhood nutrition leads to higher chances of attending school, it may also put the child at additional pressure to participate in family labor activities which may be reflected in poor performance in schooling. Therefore, policies that try to promote schooling through nutrition support programs could be more successful if they are accompanied by programs that mitigate the family’s needs for child labor like income support schemes.