Counting the uncounted: The consequences of children's domestic chores for health and education in Ethiopia

• Author: Murat Genç,David Fielding,Yonatan Dinku
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/rode.12587
• Date: 01 August 2019
• Published date: 01 August 2019

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wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/rode Rev Dev Econ. 2019;23:1260–1281.

© 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

DOI: 10.1111/rode.12587

REGULAR ARTICLE

Counting the uncounted: The consequences of

children's domestic chores for health and education

in Ethiopia

YonatanDinku1

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DavidFielding2

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MuratGenç2

1Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy

Research, Australian National University,

Canberra, Australia

2University of Otago, Dunedin, New

Zealand

Correspondence

David Fielding, Department of Economics,

University of Otago, PO Box 56, Dunedin

9054, NZ.

Email: david.fielding@otago.ac.nz

Abstract

Much of the existing literature on the economics of child

labor assumes that child labor is synonymous with employ-

ment in income- generating activities. However, children

also perform domestic chores, and excessive involvement in

chores may be detrimental to their wellbeing. This paper

investigates the effect on child health and education out-

comes of participation in domestic chores as well as partici-

pation in income- generating activities. Our data come from

the 2014 Young Lives survey of Ethiopia. We use the guide-

lines of the 18th International Conference of Labor

Statisticians and the United Nations Children's Fund to

make a distinction between light work and harmful work,

and apply this distinction to both domestic chores and

income- generating work. Using an instrumental variables

approach, we find that involvement in harmful domestic

chores is strongly associated with poor health and education

outcomes. Our findings suggest that excessive involvement

in domestic chores constitutes a form of child labor. Ignoring

domestic chores will lead to an underestimate of the preva-

lence of child labor, especially among girls, whose exposure

to chores is much higher, on average, than that of boys.

JEL CLASSIFICATION

I30, J22, J80

KEYWORDS

child labor, child wellbeing, domestic chores, Ethiopia

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DINKU etal.

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INTRODUCTION

Child labor interferes with children's education, impairs their physical and mental development, en-

dangers their health, and denies them a childhood (International Labor Organizaton [ILO], 1973;

United Nations [UN], 1989). In terms of economics, child labor undermines human capital forma-

tion and perpetuates intergenerational poverty (Heady, 2003; Gunnarsson, Orazem, & Sánchez, 2006;

Holgado et al., 2014). Edmonds and Pavcnik (2005) and Edmonds (2008) point out that although

studies of child labor feature prominently in the development economics literature, there is one im-

portant type of child labor that has received relatively little attention. Child labor is usually identified

with market- oriented activities; domestic chores, such as cooking, cleaning and washing are usually

excluded from child labor measurements. This reflects the fact that in many cultures, chores are seen

as an integral part of growing up and essential for the acquisition of life skills (ILO, 2013). Such a

view may be justified if the chores are undertaken in safe working conditions and under the close su-

pervision of a caregiver, and if the chores do not take up an excessive amount of time. However, there

are many low- income households in which these conditions are not fulfilled, and in which domestic

chores may be harmful. There is also a gender dimension to this problem: in many cultures, it is the

girls who perform domestic chores while the boys do market- oriented work (Basu, Das, & Dutta,

2010; Haile & Haile, 2012; Lloyd & Blanc, 1996). Defining child labor exclusively in terms of the

latter will lead to underestimation of the harm being done to girls.

Domestic chores could be harmful for several reasons. If children are required to spend many hours

performing chores then they will have little or no time to attend school (United Nations Children's

Fund [UNICEF], 1997). Physical and emotional fatigue from excessive work may also undermine

their ability to benefit from instruction received at school (Duryea, Lam, & Levison, 2007; Heady,

2003); it may also cause malnutrition (Graitcer & Lerer, 1998). Domestic chores could involve lift-

ing heavy loads, handling sharp objects, or lighting fires, all of which could cause injury, while the

toxic fumes from fires could cause respiratory diseases (Forastieri, 2002; Graitcer & Lerer, 1998).

Child labor conventions therefore include domestic chores in child labor definitions: both the ILO's

Minimum Age Convention (1973) and the UN's Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) require

signatory countries to protect children from any activity that poses a threat to their welfare (ILO, 1973;

UN, 1989). However, the conventions also recognize that light work may be beneficial to children, and

international labor standards permit children's participation in such work (ILO, 2008); an empirical

analysis of the effects of child labor should also make this distinction.

As noted by Edmonds and Pavcnik (2005), very few household surveys include information about

domestic chores, so this dimension of child labor is often missing from econometric studies. However,

some Young Lives surveys do contain information about chores, and this paper uses the 2014 survey

of Ethiopia to examine effects of harmful chores on child health and education outcomes of children

aged 12 to 13. We follow the guidelines of the 18th International Conference of Labor Statisticians

and UNICEF in making distinction between light work and harmful work. Harmful work is defined

as involvement in domestic chores for 4 hours a day or longer, or involvement in market- oriented

activities for 2 hours a day or longer. Controlling for the potential endogeneity of domestic chores

and market- oriented work, we find that participation in harmful domestic chores is associated with a

decrease in a child's body- mass- index- for- age z score of just under 0.5 standard deviations, and with a

reduction in education time of just under 1 hour per day.

The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 discusses the concept of child labor and

existing work on child labor in development economics. Section 3 presents the data and descriptive

statistics. Section 4 discusses the empirical models and identification strategies. Section 5 presents the

results, and Section 6 concludes.