2. Why do children work?
• In Latin America and in many developing countries,
many children work and study (López, 2005; Blanco,
2009; Gustafsson-Wright, 2000).
• Economic development and child labor are strongly
correlated (Edmonds, 2005)
• Poverty is seen as one of the main causes (López,
2005; Basu y Van, 1998; Ureña, 2008; Canagarajah,
et.al., 1997; Heady 2000; Edmonds, 2005)
• Is related with household well-being (Dar et.al. 2002)
3. The negative aspects of Child Labor
▫ It impacts children’s long term ability to satisfy their needs through a
more effective use of personal resources (Behrman, 1989)
▫ Decreases the possibility of having a good income. In México a person
with 6 years of schooling earns almost 100% more than someone without
studies. The difference with someone who completed secondary school is of
170% (López, 2005:91).
▫ Child labor contributes to create a poverty trap as households substitute
education by child work, in an attempt to increase daily income within the
household. (Ravallion, et.al, 2000; Ureña, 2008)
▫ Is a constraint to human capital , and therefore, to economic growth and
development (Udry, 2006; Glewwe & Hacoby, 1994).
▫ Boys and girls that go to school at the same time that work, decrease their
learning competence because of the lack of time for studying and because of
being tired (Heady, 2000)
▫ Can be hazardous (UNICEF, 1991; Kurz & Prather, 1995; López, 2005; OIT,
2004)
4. Research Background
• Programa de Rescate de Familias en situación
de Calle, Municipality of Guadalajara. (2008)
▫ Social program aimed to reduce children’s work
on the streets and to increase school attendance.
• Money transfers during 6 months.
• The objective: reduce costs of schooling and
promote the improvement of living conditions.
5. Results were not satisfactory…
• School attendance didn’t increase significantly
and children presence on the streets didn’t
changed as expected.
• Hypothesis:
▫ 1) Duration of the support that families were
receiving was too short for getting work training
or finding a new jobs, when most of them were
lacking basic education.
▫ 2) The money transfers were not high enough to
support a family without children’s income.
6. • There is not a monotonic relationship between
reductions in poverty and reduction in child labor
(Rogers and Swinnerton, 2004; Ravallion and
Wodon, 2000)
▫ All the families that received money transfers were on
the lowest poverty level; still many of them were
sending their children to school even when they were
not enrolled in the program.
▫ (2007) Study on working families in Guadalajara. 335
children were working on the streets and within the
main markets of the municipality. Almost 50% of boys
and girls were working and studying.
Using income as main variable doesn’t explain
child labor in Guadalajara.
7. Research Question
Initial Question
•Why some families that work
children work and
on the streets send their have
others do not, when you
children to school and others
the same need for a better
do not?
income?
8. Hypothesis
• Culture plays a significant role in shaping
parents’ decisions about child labor and
schooling; but also, in facilitating the
existence of an informal market that makes
it easy for children to work.
9. I’m arguing that…
Culture
Perceived Child labor
Cost of and
Existence of Schooling Schooling
informal market
10. Main argument
• Mandatory education and free public education
reduce costs of attending school; but, resource
constraints and an accessible and flexible labor
market increase the perceived cost of
schooling.
Given the possibility of working and studying at
the same time, culture and gender based
prejudice play a significant role in parents’
decisions about child labor and schooling.
11. Main Aim
• To incorporate cultural arguments in the
perception of costs of schooling in order to
better understand determinants of child time
allocation in Guadalajara, Mexico.
12. Purpose of this research
• To contribute to the knowledge base by
exploring the influence of culture, family
ideologies and gender values on child labor.
• Seeks to better explain the interaction of culture,
opportunity structures and calculation in
sustaining child labor.
13. Literature Review
• Poverty
• Relative return to child time in schooling
• Parental preferences in child time allocation
decisions
• Variables:
▫ Income level, Child labor, School attendance
▫ Parents’ education, Number of siblings, Family
size, Proportion of older siblings, Number of
brothers, Number of sisters, Family headship
14. Poverty
Children work when the family is unable to meet basic needs (Basu
and Van 1998)
As a survival strategy (Brown, Deardorff and Stern 2003).
Children’s contribution to household income (Psacharopoulos
1997, Menon, Pareli and Rosati 2005),
Link between national income and economic activity rates of
children (Edmonds 2008).
No clear relationship between economic status and child labor
(Psacharopoulos 1997); especially when poor households are
compared with rich households (Edmonds 2008).
15. Relative return to child time in
schooling and parental preferences
• Can be affected by living arrangements, fertility (Patrinos and
Psacharopoulos 1997, V. Levy 1985, Hazan and Berdugo
2002)…
• …and market imperfections in credit, land and goods markets
(Ranjan 2001, Guarcello, Mealli and Rosati 2003).
• It is also influenced by how parents value play, domestic work,
formal labor or school costs.
• Strongly linked with parental preferences in child time
allocation decisions; this is, between time in work activities
relative to non-work activities (Rosati and Rossi 2003).
16. Filling the Gap
• Few works have incorporated family values and gender based
prejudice, to understand parents decisions about child labor
and schooling.
• Buchmann (2000). Considers parents’ perceptions and
gender based prejudice
• No other research that I know has considered family
ideology and gender based values to understand parents’
decisions about child labor and schooling, even when research
has shown that work is a social act embedded in social and
cultural dynamics (Beşpinar-Ekici 2007) and when
comparative studies have shown important differences due to
cultural aspects (Ray 2000).
17. Child work and child labor
• Child labor: Children working “before they reached the
lawful minimum age for employment in their country”
(UNICEF 2005, 7).
• Market-oriented activities; activities that involve the
“direct production of economic goods and services (…)
whether for the market, for [exchange], or for own
consumption, the production of all other goods and
services for the market and, in the case of households
which produce such goods and services for the market,
the corresponding production for own consumption”
(ILO 2000, 1)
18. Child work
• Traditional definitions do not include domestic work and
marginal activities.
• Marginal activities, as defined by INEGI, include
begging, cleaning windshields and selling “pity”, among
other activities.
• They are characterized by being transactions that take
place in one direction. This is, transactions in which the
service was not asked; where it is not the result of
demand. On a strict sense it is not an authentic economic
transaction (INEGI 2007).
19. Why a different definition
• Children are exposed to the same risks and
similar activities than children who work selling
on the streets. (It is a form of child-labor)
• They are also a source of family income
• One or maybe the only activity that small
children perform (misrepresentation or
children’s participation)
• The inclusion of marginal activities will help me
to identify significant variations among gender.
20. The perceived cost of schooling
• The expected income of children if working
instead of studying.
Cost of schooling
Family Income
Perceived
cost of
Children’s income (present) schooling
Expected income (future)
VALUE in Education
21. Child labor and culture: the families
• (2007) At least 1165 persons working
on the streets of the municipality of
Guadalajara. Which represent
approximately 250 families.
• At least 40 of them are mixtecos that
live in the poorer zones of Guadalajara.
22. Mixtecos Mixtecos Mixtecos Tapatios
Col. Ferrocarrilera Col. Ferrocarrilera El Embarcadero
2nd generation Recently arrived Recently arrived Born in the city or
Families
A family member owns a Place of their own, Irregular settlement, share
surroundings
Rent a place for their family.
place to live previously from a relative the place with other Lease or borrow a room in a
(don’t have papers, but feel families relative’s house.
as if their own)
1 or 2 households in the Mostly 1 household per 2 or more households in Mostly 1 household per place
same property place of residence the same property of residence
Children under 5 are still Children under 5 are still Children under 5 are still Children need to go to school
small for attending school small for attending school small for attending school since they are 3 years old
Both men and women can Men are mainly gardeners; Men are mainly gardeners; Both men and women can sell
sell on the streets women sell on the streets women sell on the streets on the streets, but they are
mainly “franeleros”
Both parents try to learn Few adults speak Spanish. Few adults speak Spanish. Spanish speakers
Spanish or know it
Trying to improve living Not really interested in The poorest of all. Trying to improve living
conditions. Strong interest changing their way of life conditions. Strong interest in
in children’s education. Do and no much interest in children’s education. Do not
not want a 3rd generation children’s school. want their children working
of street vendors. on the streets.
All of them share the lack of opportunities because of education level
23. Research questions and hypotheses
• 1. How do the school system and the informal
market influence child labor in Guadalajara?
▫ To analyze the characteristics of the school system
and the labor market in Guadalajara that facilitate
child labor.
Time spent at school in addition to the
probability of getting a good income in the
informal labor market makes it easy for
children to work and study at the same time.
24. • 2. Why do some poor families send their
children to work and others do not, even when
they have similar living conditions?
▫ To identify the general determinants of child labor
for the case of Mexico.
•Minimal differences in cost of schooling, when income
level is too low, can have a significant impact in school
attendance.
•Families do a huge effort to send their child to school,
because there is still a strong belief on school as a source
for improving future income.
25. • 3. How do culture and family values influence
parents’ perception about costs of schooling?
▫ To understand the influence of experience in
Guadalajara and culture, over preferences about
schooling.
Culture and family background influence
parents’ decisions about child labor and
schooling.
Families who were raised in Guadalajara have a
different idea of what a child should be doing in
early age, than indigenous families who recently
arrived to Guadalajara…
26. • 4. How do prejudice about boys’ and girls’
differences influence parents’ decisions about
work and schooling?
▫ To analyze the effects of gender stereotypes on
children’s participation in the labor market and
school attendance.
The minor presence of girls working on the streets
can be understood as the result of an exclusion
process strongly embedded in a culture in which
women’s tasks and responsibilities are socially
defined and limited in such a way that an important
part of their work is not visible.
27. Methodology
Methodology Sample Objective Data Source
Concurrent mixed Families that work on the To explore the influence of Interviews with
method approach streets of Guadalajara (FWS- culture, family ideologies andworking families
Gdl) gender values on child labor Survey data
Working children at the ENIGH
national level ENOE
Household interviews FWS-Gdl To measure the relationship Interviews with
between the perceived cost of working families
schooling and child labor. Survey data
Semi-structured Two different groups: Mixtecos The influence of culture and Interviews with
interviews from Oaxaca who currently live family values on perceptions working families
in Guadalajara and have about costs of schooling Ethnographic research
children working on the streets, on the streets of
and working families who were Guadalajara
born in Guadalajara
Econometric Analysis Children who work in Mexico Analyze economic and social Recent data on child
factors that affect child labor labor in Mexico
and Schooling at the national
level.
Analyze cultural factors from a
quantitative perspective.
28. Notes about the sample
• Families that work on the streets: children
with similar working conditions, and economic
background.
• Recent data on child labor in Mexico will let
me analyze economic and social factors that affect
child labor and Schooling at the national level.
• Focusing on poor people will allow me to go beyond
poverty in the analysis.
• The possibility of comparing an indigenous migrant
population with local residents will allow me to
identify cultural differences that could influence
parents’ decisions.
29. Significance
• Incorporating cultural factors to understand
parents’ decisions about child work is important
because it can help policy makers to better target
child labor and schooling.
• Understanding cultural differences could help
implement public programs that better target
population needs.
• By applying Buchmann’s analysis to the case of
Mexico, I will be able to develop a theoretical
framework that accounts for the determinants of
child labor in developing countries with strong sex-
stereotypes.
30. Tentative organization of the
dissertation
• Introduction
Child labor, school attendance and gender: A review of the literature
Sample, methods and Data analysis
• Chapter 1. Child labor and school attendance in Mexico
The correlation between child labor and schooling
Determinants of child labor and schooling
Child labor and the perceived cost of schooling
• Chapter 2. Children in the informal market: The case of children working on the streets of Guadalajara.
Informal labor market and school system
The city as a public space for working and living: “Guadalajara is not Mexico City...”
Working children in Guadalajara
• Chapter 3. Culture, family ideology and children’s presence on the streets.
Being indígena, indigenas in the city and being tapatios… what does it means? Cultural differences among
indigenous population and Mestizos.
• Chapter 4. Where do girls hide? Differences among boys and girls.
• Chapter 5. Theoretical and Empirical contributions of the dissertation to Current Debates in Sociology
• Conclusions.
• Appendixes.
• References.
