The effect of labour inspections on reducing child labour in Brazil

South America

Brazil

Labour Market

Labour Regulation / Inspection

R Bonfim de Almeida, AL Kassouf

2016

Roselaine Bonfim De Almeida & Ana Lúcia Kassouf, 2016. "The Effect Of Labor Inspections On Reducing Child Labor In Brazil," Anais do XLIII Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 43rd Brazilian Economics Meeting] 238, ANPEC.
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Secondary data: partially public. Census 2000 and Census 2010: https://www.ibge.gov.br/sidra.

2016

N. A.

2000-2010 (range of data, between two Censuses)

The objective of the study is to examine the impact of labor inspections on child labor.

Children between 10-17 years old were targeted in the study.

N. A.

• The proportion of working children

Instrumental Variables

Study design: The variable used to measure the enforcement of labor regulations is the number of companies inspected by labor inspectors in each municipality in 2002. However, the authors argue that it is not possible to assume that every variation in the measure that was used to check the enforcement of labor regulations is exogenous. This is because in some municipalities inspections could be more frequent simply because they are known for violating labor laws or because they are more developed municipalities. To solve this problem, the authors used the costs incurred in carrying out inspections as an instrument for the number of inspected companies. The variable that was used to measure this cost was the distance in hours between a municipality where a company is located and the regional labor office closest to the municipality in question. The greater the distance, the higher the cost of inspections. Therefore, larger distances are likely to reduce the number of inspections in a municipality.
Sample: data from the 2000 and 2010 censuses were used to create the variable ‘proportion of working children and adolescents in the 10-17 age range,’ which is the main dependent variable. Child labor is measured as the total number of children and adolescents from 10 to 17 years old engaged in any activity for one hour or more during the reference week divided by the total number of children and adolescents in that age bracket. The data on labor inspection was obtained from the Ministry of Labor through the Labor Inspection Secretariat (SIT). Those data contain i) the number of labor inspectors (AFTs) by the state in 2001 and 2010; ii) the location of Regional Labor Offices and Superintendent, and iii) the number of inspected establishments in the municipality in 2002 and 2010. Another variable that was used, which is related to labor inspection, is the distance (as measured in hours by car) between each municipality and the closest Regional Labor Office or Superintendence in the state. This variable was calculated using the Google Maps tool. A rich set of controls were also used.
Survey Instrument: N. A.

Labor inspections are an important mechanism for fighting child labor. The effect of inspections was greater in the age range of younger children and adolescents and this effect diminishes as these children grow older. A 1% increase in inspections decreased child labor among children and adolescents in the 10-14 age bracket by 0.45%, while reductions of 0.19% and approximately 0.09% were observed among 15-year-old adolescents and adolescents aged from 16 to 17 years old, respectively. Analyzing the 10-17 age bracket, a 1% increase in inspections led to a decrease of 0.22% in child labor.

Child Labour

Households

National

Labour inspections are an important mechanism for fighting child labour. The effect of inspections was greater in the age range of younger children and adolescents and this effect diminishes as these children grow older. A 1% increase in inspections decreased child labour among children and adolescents in the 10-14 age bracket by 0.45%, while reductions of 0.19% and approximately 0.09% were observed among 15-year-old adolescents and adolescents aged from 16 to 17 years old, respectively. Analyzing the 10-17 age bracket, a 1% increase in inspections led to a decrease of 0.22% in child labour.

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One limitation of this study is that it was not possible to obtain robust results by creating a panel with data from the two years that were analyzed, namely, 2000 and 2010. This is because there is no sufficient variability in the data that were used to define the instrumental variables. The distance between municipalities does not change over time and changes in the number of labor inspectors by the state were not sufficient to capture any effect.