Child labour and educational success in Portugal

The debate on child labour has focused mainly on developing countries. However, child labour also persists in some developed countries. Portugal is an example of a country where child labour is still a matter of concern as about 8-12 percent of Portuguese children aged 6-15 may be classified as workers. This paper studies the patterns of child labour in Portugal and assesses the consequences of working on the educational performance of Portuguese children. In particular, we draw a distinction between domestic and economic child work and examine the effect of these two types of labour on school success.a An intermediate step in our analysis is an assessment of the factors that determine the duration of work and the probability of succeeding in school. Our analysis reveals that the two types of labour have asymmetric effects. While economic work hinders educational success, domestic work does not appear to be harmful. We also find that, after controlling for a host of relevant socio-economic variables, factors such as a child’s interest in school and educational ambitions appear to have a direct and large effect on boosting educational success and reducing economic work