Child Labor and Schooling in A Globalizing World: Some Evidence from Urban India
利用印度1991年贸易自由化，考察了关税保护下降对城市地区童工和入学率的影响，发现关税削减越大的地区，童工减少和入学率提升的幅度越小，且女孩受影响更明显。
Trade influences child time allocation in developing countries through its effects on the returns to education, labor demand, and poverty. We examine how India's dramatic 1991 trade liberalization influenced child labor and schooling in urban areas of India that differ in the extent to which employment lost tariff protection. In general, urban India experienced large increases in schooling and decreases in child labor over the 1990s. We find that these improvements are attenuated in Indian cities where employment experienced larger reductions in tariff protection. Girls are particularly affected. We argue that the observed changes in child time allocation are consistent with differential declines in poverty across regions, but changes in the economic opportunities of children might also play a role in our findings.