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Abstract
This paper uses experimental panel data for Mexico from 1997 to 2000 in order to test assumptions on the impact of a conditional cash transfer (CCT) program on child labor and school attendance, adding to the literature by emphasizing the differential impact on indigenous households. Using data from the CCT program, PROGRESA (later on known as OPORTUNIDADES), we investigate the interaction between child labor, education and indigenous households. While indigenous children had a greater probability of working before the intervention, this probability is reversed after treatment in the program. Indigenous monolingual children also had lower school attainment compared with Spanish-speaking or indigenous bilingual children. After the program, school attainment among indigenous children increased, reducing the gap. In terms of child labor, the larger reduction is in the group of bilingual children.
Acknowledgement
The authors gratefully acknowledge support from the UNICEF/ILO/World Bank Understanding Children's Work program, and comments from Furio Rosati. The authors are also very thankful to two referees who provided very useful comments.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
About the Authors
Luis F. Lopez-Calva is the co-Director of the World Development Report 2017: “Governance and The Law”. He was previously Lead Economist and Regional Poverty Advisor in the Europe and Central Asia Region at The World Bank (Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Sector). Until 2013, he was at the Poverty, Equity and Gender Unit in the Latin America and Caribbean PREM Directorate, also at The World Bank. He served as Chief Economist for Latin America and the Caribbean at UNDP in New York from 2007 to 2010. He has been a Visiting Scholar at the Stanford Center for International Development at Stanford University and at the World Institute for Development Economics Research (WIDER). In Mexico, he was Associate Professor and Chair of the Masters in Public Economics at Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico City Campus. Lopez-Calva has also taught at Universidad de la Américas, Puebla and El Colegio de México. He is a Fellow of the Human Development and Capabilities Association and is Associate Editor of the Journal of Human Development and Capabilities and Well-being and Social Policy. He has Master's in Economics from Boston University, and a Master's and Ph.D. in Economics from Cornell University. His publications and research interests focus on labor markets, poverty and inequality, institutions and development economics.
Harry Anthony Patrinos is a Manager at the World Bank's education sector. He specializes in all areas of education, especially school-based management, demand-side financing and public-private partnerships. He managed education lending operations and analytical work programs in Argentina, Colombia and Mexico, as well as a regional research project on the socioeconomic status of Latin America’s Indigenous Peoples, published as Indigenous Peoples, Poverty and Human Development in Latin America (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). He is one of the main authors of the report, Lifelong Learning in the Global Knowledge Economy (World Bank, 2003). He has many publications in the academic and policy literature, with more than 40 journal articles. He is co-author of the books: Policy Analysis of Child Labor: A Comparative Study (St. Martin’s, 1999), Decentralization of Education: Demand-Side Financing (World Bank, 1997), and Indigenous People and Poverty in Latin America: An Empirical Analysis with George Psacharopoulos (World Bank/Ashgate, 1994). He has also worked in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North America. He previously worked as an economist at the Economic Council of Canada. He received a doctorate from the University of Sussex.