Bangladesh's Food-for-Education program, offering a stipend considerably less than the mean child wage, was enough to ensure nearly full school attendance among participants. The enrollment subsidy also reduced the incidence of child labor, but that effect accounted for only a small proportion of the increase in school enrollment. Ravallion and Wodon try to determine whether children sent to work in rural Bangladesh are caught in a poverty trap, with the extra income to poor families from child labor coming at the expense of the children's longer-term prospects of escaping poverty through education. The poverty trap argument depends on children's work being substitutable for schooling. Casual observations and the descriptive statistics available from surveys seem to offer little support for the argument. To explore the question more deeply, Ravallion and Wodon use a targeted school stipend to identify how much child labor substitutes for schooling. They find that Bangladesh's Food-for-Education program is a strong incentive for school attendance. A stipend with a value considerably less than the mean child wage was enough to ensure nearly full school attendance among participants. The enrollment subsidy also reduced the incidence of child labor, an effect that accounted for only a small proportion of the increase in school enrollment. The reduction in the incidence of child labor among boys (girls) represents about one-quarter (one-eighth) of the increase in their school enrollment rate. Parents are clearly substituting other uses of their children's time to secure the current income gain from access to the program, with modest impact on earnings from their children's work. The authors' tests were limited. Work may well displace time for doing homework or attending after-school tutorials, for example. Ravallion and Quentin were unable to identify such effects from the data available. There may also be other welfare losses to children from work (such as exposure to an unsafe working environment) as well as welfare gains (such as skills learned from working that enhance returns to schooling). But their results do lead them to question the seemingly common view that child labor is a major factor perpetuating poverty in Bangladesh by keeping children from poor families out of school. This paper - a joint product of Poverty and Human Resources, Development Research Group, and Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Sector Unit, Latin America and the Caribbean Region - is part of a larger effort in the Bank to study behavioral responses to social programs. The authors may be contacted at mravallion@worldbank.org or qwodon@worldbank.org.

Does Child Labor Displace Schooling? Evidence on Behavioral Responses to an Enrollment Subsidy

The main goal of this study is two-fold: (1) to provide a general overview of thecontributions to the literature on the informal sector, with a special focus on the PublicChoice approach; and (2) to compare these contributions across two institutionallydifferent types of countries: developed and less developed (developing and transition)countries. The paper focuses on the criteria used to define the informal sector, therelationship between the formal and informal economy, tax evasion, and PublicChoice analysis. It is stressed throughout this paper that the distinction between thetwo types of countries is of key importance.

Informal Sector in Developed and less Developed Countries: A Literature Survey

The main goal of this study is two-fold: (1) to provide ageneral overview of the contributions to the literature on theinformal sector, with a special focus on the public choiceapproach; and (2) to compare these contributions across twoinstitutionally different types of countries: developed andless developed (developing and transition) countries. Thepaper focuses on the criteria used to define the informalsector, the relationship between the formal and informaleconomy, tax evasion, and public choice analysis. It isstressed throughout this paper that the distinction betweenthe two types of countries is of key importance.

https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/85481/1/99083.pdf

The informal sector in developed and less developed countries: A literature survey *

This inaugural essay surveys themes and approaches in agrarian political economy over the last three decades, especially with reference to contributions to, and debates in, the Journal of Peasant Studies of which T. J. Byres was editor from 1973 to 2000 and Henry Bernstein editor from 1985 to 2000. We indicate intellectual strengths and lacunae, new approaches to longstanding issues, and new concerns which emerged over that period, and which inform the project of this new Journal of Agrarian Change and the challenges it presents.

From Peasant Studies to Agrarian Change

Child Labor and Schooling Decisions in Urban and Rural Areas: Comparative Evidence from Nepal, Peru, and Zimbabwe

Economic growth and the persistence of child labor: Evidence from an Indian city

Understanding the ''Informal Sector'' A Survey

An indictment of food policies of the liberalization era. It also discusses alternative proposals for making the public distribution system an effective measures of food security.

Weakening Welfare: The Public Distribution of Food in India

Financial liberalization is a key component of programmes of orthodox structural adjustment. Financial reforms include, among other things, the removal of controls on interest rates and the abolition of programmes of directed credit. Here the effect of financial sector reform on rural banking and rural credit transactions in India is examined, with particular reference to landless labour households. First, the trends in selected indicators of rural banking at the national level over the last 30 years are reviewed. Secondly, longitudinal data for a village in Tamil Nadu are used to examine changes in patterns of indebtedness and credit transactions among landless labour households. It is argued that the exploitation of landless labour households in the credit market has intensified with the introduction of financial reforms. Lastly, the policy envisaged as an alternative to the formal credit sector in the countryside – the establishment of micro–credit projects – is examined critically.

Rural Banking and Landless Labour Households: Institutional Reform and Rural Credit Markets in India

This paper examines certain aspects of employment among women workers in hired labour households, drawing on two surveys of Gokilapuram, a village in south-west Tamil Nadu, India, conducted in 1977 and 1999. The study finds that, first, work participation rates among women were high. Secondly, a woman was able to gain employment in 1999, on average, for only about six months a year. Thirdly, there was a distinct shift between 1977 and 1999 in the composition of total employment available to women Fourthly, while the real wage rate for women at cash-paid, daily-rated crop operations rose significantly between 1977 and 1999, the gender gap in wages widened.

http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/apcity/unpan012693.pdf

Madhura Swaminathan

Papers

Economic growth and the persistence of child labor: Evidence from an Indian city

Understanding the ''Informal Sector'' A Survey

Weakening Welfare: The Public Distribution of Food in India

Rural Banking and Landless Labour Households: Institutional Reform and Rural Credit Markets in India

How have hired workers fared? a case study of women workers from an indian village, 1977 to 1999