Peer-reviewed article
Why has there been a fall in child labour and an increase in school attendance in Mexico?
Jorge Valero, Magali Valero ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study examines why child labour fell and school attendance increased in Mexico between 2000 and 2020 for children aged 12-14. Using statistical decomposition analysis, the researchers found that improvements in parents' education was the strongest driver of these changes, followed by government cash transfers and increased access to health insurance. The findings suggest that policies aimed at reducing poverty and improving parental education are key to improving child outcomes.
Key points
- Parental education (measured in years) was the most important factor explaining improvements in child labour and school attendance
- Government assistance programmes and increased access to social health insurance played important supporting roles
- The impact of parental education remained significant even after accounting for income correlations
- Results were consistent across Mexican states with both high and low poverty incidence
- Some poverty-fighting policy changes had undesirable effects on child labour and school attendance
Limitations
The study uses decomposition analysis on existing data and cannot establish causal mechanisms or determine how specific policies directly influenced parental education levels. The analysis examines correlation and contribution to change but does not isolate the mechanisms through which parental education influences children's outcomes.
Abstract
Summary Motivation It is imperative to understand the factors affecting child labour and school attendance in order to develop policies aimed at improving children's lives. The need for such policies is because poor households may underinvest in human capital. Individual factors have been shown to affect child labour and school attendance, but we examine which factors cause the strongest effects by considering them simultaneously. Purpose We evaluate the factors that have led to the changes in child labour and school attendance of children aged 12–14 in Mexico during the 2000–2020 period. We consider income, the education of the household head, government cash transfers, access to public health institutions, remittances, and demographic characteristics as possible sources of the changes. Methods and approach We use a variant of the Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition, which allows decomposition when the variables to be explained are dichotomous. The change in child labour and school attendance over time can then be decomposed into explained and unexplained portions, with each factor contributing a specific amount to the explained portion of the change. Findings The most important factor influencing improvements in child labour and school attendance was the improvement in the parents' human capital, measured as years of education. The result is not due to a high correlation between income and education, as significant explanatory power is lost as we exclude education from the analysis. The result is also robust to separating Mexican states into those with high and those with low incidence of poverty. The increase in government assistance and greater access to social health insurance also play an important role. Policy implications Public policies aimed at increasing school attendance and those aimed at reducing child labour should consider improved education as a major goal. In addition, important consideration should be given to the possible impact on children of poverty‐fighting policy changes. Our findings suggest that government policies aimed at reducing poverty in Mexico are important in influencing both child labour and school attendance, and policy changes have had undesirable effects on both.