Peer-reviewed article
Mobile money, child labour and school enrolment
Joseph Boniface Ajefu, Falecia Massacky ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study examined how mobile money services affect child labour and school enrolment in Tanzania using national household survey data from 2008 to 2015. Researchers found that when households adopted mobile money, children were more likely to attend school and less likely to work. The effect varied by the child's age and gender. The study suggests that increased remittances and education spending after adopting mobile money may explain why fewer children work and more attend school.
Key points
- Mobile money adoption had a positive and significant effect on school enrolment
- Mobile money adoption had a negative effect on children's labour market activities
- Impacts differed by child gender and age
- Remittances receipt and education expenditure are potential pathways linking mobile money to improved schooling and reduced child labour
- Financial inclusion policies like mobile money can reduce child labour and improve school enrolment
Limitations
The study uses observational data and cannot prove causation with complete certainty, though it uses rigorous methods (difference-in-differences and instrumental variables). The findings are specific to Tanzania and may not apply to other countries with different economic or social contexts.
Abstract
This paper analyses the impact of household adoption of mobile money services on child labour and schooling in Tanzania. The paper uses data drawn from the Tanzania National Panel Surveys (TNPS), for the survey periods as follows: 2008/09, 2010/11, 2012/13, and 2014/15. The TNPS are national representative surveys conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics of Tanzania in collaboration with the World Bank Living Standards Measurement Study-Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LMSA-ISA). The surveys collect detailed information on individual, household, and community-level characteristics. The panel nature of the TNPS allows for the same households to be interviewed over time. The study uses a difference-in-differences approach, and instrumental variables strategy to investigate the nexus between mobile money adoption and child labour and school enrolment in Tanzania. The findings of this study reveal a positive and significant effect of mobile money adoption on school enrolment, but a negative effect on children's labour market activities. Moreover, the study identifies heterogenous impacts across child's gender and age; and remittances receipt and education expenditure are the potential pathways through which mobile money adoption affects child labour and school enrolment. Overall, the results suggest that policies that enhance financial inclusion such as the introduction of mobile money can be effective in improving child's school enrolment and a decline in the incidence of child labour.
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- Household adoption of mobile money services
- Population
- Tanzanian households with school-age children, surveyed across multiple years
Key finding
Positive and significant effect of mobile money adoption on school enrolment