Natural resource-collection work and children's schooling in Malawi
研究马拉维6-14岁儿童在拾柴和取水等自然资源采集劳动上的时长如何影响其入学概率，发现劳动时间越长入学可能性越低，且女孩负担更重。
Abstract This paper presents results of research that investigates if long hours of work spent by children in fuel wood and water-collection activities, i.e., natural resource-collection work, influence the likelihood that a child aged 6–14 attends school. Potential endogeneity of resource-collection work hours is corrected for, using two-stage conditional maximum likelihood estimation. Data from the 1997–1998 Malawi Integrated Household Survey (IHS) conducted by the Malawi National Statistics Office (NSO) in conjunction with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) are used. The study finds that Malawian children are significantly involved in resource-collection work and their likelihood of attending school decreases with increases in hours allocated to this work. The study further shows that girls spend more hours on resource-collection work and are more likely to be attending school while burdened by this work. Consequently, girls may find it difficult to progress well in school. However, girls are not necessarily less likely to be attending school. Results further show that presence of more women in a household is associated with a lower burden of resource-collection work on children and a higher probability of children's school attendance. Finally, the research shows that children from the most environmentally degraded districts of central and southern Malawi are less likely to attend school and relatively fewer of them have progressed to secondary school compared to those from districts in the north.