Anne Kielland

Child Labor Migration in Benin: Incentive, Constraint, or Agency? Anne Kielland

Most empirical studies of child labor and schooling choices ignore a common third option in Africa: to send a child away from the household to work elsewhere. The explanation is simple: most datasets are based on surveys which primarily provide information on members living in the household at the time of the interview. This book adds to the existing child labor literature by focusing on the child labor migration choice. The model applied is based on three hypotheses for explaining child labor, as proposed by Bahlotra and Tzannatos (2003): weak incentives to schooling relative to work options, (binding) poverty constraints, and limitations to parental (or agent) altruism. The three potential explanations have different policy implications. The first would call for improving incentives to education, the second suggests social policy interventions, while the third would legitimize legal measures. The results of the empirical analysis only partially support the theory. This book should be relevant to both researchers and practitioners concerned with providing the knowledge base and well informed solutions to the challenges of child labor and child trafficking in Africa.