The effect of child labour on children’s health in Brazil
International Journal of Social Economics
ISSN: 0306-8293
Article publication date: 12 February 2018
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine if child labour can have long-term consequences on children’s health status.
Design/methodology/approach
To capture this relationship, this paper uses the Brazilian National Household Survey (PNAD) conducted in 1998, 2003 and 2008, structured as a pseudo panel and estimated using a fractional response model.
Findings
The results show that child labour is negatively associated with child’s health status, and the longer the hours worked, the worse is the child’s health status. The authors also observe that hazardous labour had a three times higher negative effect on the child’s health and those who worked in service sectors are more prone to having a worse health status.
Originality/value
The study shows that different children’s occupations may have very different impacts on children’s health and indicates that despite the fact that Brazil has a strict law prohibiting child labour, the share of children working is still high and this work has a negative impact on child’s health.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank FAPESP, CAPES, CNPq, CEPEA, German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development – BMZ and InWent. The authors report no conflicts of interest.
Citation
Nicolella, A. and Kassouf, A.L. (2018), "The effect of child labour on children’s health in Brazil", International Journal of Social Economics, Vol. 45 No. 2, pp. 357-371. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSE-10-2016-0292
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited