Is Child Work Detrimental to the Educational Achievement of Children?: Results from Young Lives in Ethiopia

Produced by Young Lives, this paper explores the effect of child labour on children’s school accomplishments as measured by the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT).

The results show that children’s work had a negative effect on achievement in education. This information is intended to impact project programming and policy making. It is important to design mechanisms that enable households to withstand income shocks without resorting to child labour.

The Government of Ethiopia is encouraged to implement a programme that provides financial incentives to households to send their children to school regularly, thus potentially increasing the children’s future earning capacity.