An Empirical Analysis on the Tradeoff between Schooling and Child Labor in the Philippines

Abstract

Does the prevalence of child work or child labor encumber on the country's economic growth and development? This paper looks into the reality that is child labor and tries to understand its existence in light of education realities and schooling issues in the Philippines. It studies the cruel intertemporal tradeoff that poor families are compelled to make in order to survive: young children are made to work, which sets back their schooling trajectory and negatively impacts on their future employability. A spillover effect of this sad choice is that the country's (future) labor productivity is likely to deteriorate in turn, which will have negative consequences on our long-term growth prospects.