Parental migration, unpaid child labour, and human capital

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how parental migration due to poverty affects a child’s education and human capital formation through changes in the child’s supply of unpaid labour.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper uses a small open overlapping generations model where the parent migrates for the family’s subsistence and that the child has to give up a part of education to do the housework during the parent’s absence.

Findings

The paper finds that given the level of the human capital, reducing the child’s burden of housework and promoting parental migration to high-wage countries do not necessarily raise the amount of child’s education. The paper also finds a possible underdevelopment trap in the dynamic context.

Originality/value

Unlike previous studies on child labour, this paper focuses on unpaid labour, whose share is actually larger than that of paid labour. Even if paid labour is available, children cannot re-allocate their time from doing the housework to the market work; so the author cannot disregard this observation. Investigation into the dynamics of human capital formation under such child labour is new.

Citation

Shimada, A. (2015), "Parental migration, unpaid child labour, and human capital", International Journal of Social Economics, Vol. 42 No. 10, pp. 906-920. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSE-11-2013-0253