Conflict and child labor: evidence from poor households in Colombia

Colombia suffers from one of the longest civil conflicts in the world, which isbelieved to have had several consequences on the country’s economic and developmentperformance. This study uses measures of central government deterrenceeffort as instruments of conflict to estimate the impact of conflict on children’s timeallocation to two different types of work: housework and work performed outsidethe household for poor families living in small municipalities in Colombia. I findthat conflict significantly increases the amount of time children allocate to work. Both housework, for girls, and work outside the household, for boys, increase withGuerrilla attacks. However, the later effect is the opposite for Paramilitary attacks.Universidad del Rosari