How Much Work is Too Much? Thresholds in the Effect of Child Work on Schooling -- The Case of Egypt

Ragui Assaad, University of Minnesota
Deborah Levison, University of Minnesota

Child and youth work in developing countries is often assumed to have negative effects on schooling, regardless of the amount of work being performed. However, in the U.S., limited amounts of work have been found to be beneficial for child development, including performance in school. In this paper we examine how many hours of work can be undertaken before negative effects on school attendance are observed in Egypt. Elsewhere, we established that work for 14+ hours per week has a negative impact on schooling for both boys and girls, when girls’ work included time spent on household tasks. Here, we jointly estimate hours worked and school attendance using methods that allow us to test for the presence of thresholds in the effect of child work on schooling.