The effect of child labour on children’s health in Brazil

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.