posts: 28600

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                "text": [
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                        "text": "Children who work tend to attend school less frequently",
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                        "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/child-labor/#definitions-and-measurement",
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                                "text": "Child labor constitutes in most situations a violation of children's rights,",
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                        "text": " as it is often linked to several forms of abuse and harm. Specifically in the context of education, child labor is often linked to poor educational outcomes. The chart here, from Schultz and Strauss (2008),{ref} Eric V. Edmonds \"Child Labor\", Chapter 57 in T. Paul Schultz, John Strauss (2008), Handbook of Development Economics, Volume 4. North Holland{/ref} shows evidence for this. It plots school attendance rates for children aged 10\u201314 years olds, against total hours worked in the last week (by type of work) with 95 percent confidence intervals (labeled CI and plotted in lighter shades).",
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                        "text": "Children who work more hours tend to attend school less frequently. And the steepest segments of the pictured curves are in the range 20-45 hours, which suggests \u2014 as one would naturally expect \u2014 that it is most difficult for a child to attend school when approaching\u00a0full-time work.",
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                        "text": "This evidence also shows that there is no significant difference between children engaged in domestic or marketed work.",
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                        "text": "School Attendance vs. Hours Worked - Schultz and Strauss (2008) {ref} Eric V. Edmonds \"Child Labor\", Chapter 57 in T. Paul Schultz, John Strauss (2008), Handbook of Development Economics, Volume 4. North Holland{/ref}",
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                "alt": "School Attendance vs. Hours Worked, from Eric V. Edmonds \"Child Labor\", Chapter 57 in T. Paul Schultz, John Strauss (2008), Handbook of Development Economics, Volume 4. North Holland.",
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                "filename": "ourworldindata_schoolvswork.png",
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                "text": [
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                        "text": "In countries where children tend to work longer hours, it is more common that working children remain out of school",
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                        "text": "The chart above shows the relationship between school attendance and hours worked using ",
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                        "children": [
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                                "text": "micro",
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                        "text": " data, which means that the authors investigate the relationship across ",
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                                "text": "individual",
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                        "text": " households. A similar pattern can also be seen in the data if we look at the corresponding country-level macro variables: In countries where children tend to work longer hours, it is more common that working children remain out of school. The interactive chart below shows this by plotting country-level average hours worked by children against share of working children who are out of school.",
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                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/working-children-out-of-school-ages-7-14-vs-hours-worked-by-children-ages-7-14",
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                "text": [
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                        "text": "There is evidence of a causal link between child labor and education outcomes",
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                        "text": "These correlations on the micro and macro level are of course not enough to establish a causal relationship. There are many potential economic and cultural factors that simultaneously influence both schooling and work decisions; and in any case, the direction of the relationships is not obvious\u2014do children work because they are not attending school, or do they fail to attend school because they are working?",
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                        "text": "A number of academic studies have tried to investigate whether there is indeed a\u00a0causal relationship by attempting to find a factor (an \u2018",
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                        "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_variables_estimation",
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                                "text": "instrumental variable",
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                        "text": "\u2019) that only affects whether a child works without affecting how the family values other uses of the child\u2019s time.\u00a0These studies \u2013 like Rosati & Rossi (2003) or Gunnarsson, Orazem & Sanchez (2006) \u2013 suggest that there is indeed a causal relationship: work often does determine whether a child remains in, or drops out of, school.{ref} Rosati, F., Rossi, M. (2003). ",
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                        "url": "ftp://www.ceistorvergata.it/repec/rpaper/No-25-Rosati,Rossi.pdf",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "Children\u2019s working hours and school enrollment: Evidence from Pakistan and Nicaragua",
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                        "text": ". World Bank Economic Review 17, 283\u2013295.{/ref} {ref}Gunnarsson, V., Orazem, P., Sanchez, M. (2006). ",
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                        "url": "http://www2.econ.iastate.edu/faculty/orazem/Child%20Labor%20in%20Latin%20America.pdf",
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                                "text": "Child labor and school achievement in Latin America",
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                    },
                    {
                        "text": ". World Bank Economic Review 20, 31\u201354.{/ref}",
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                "text": [
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                        "text": "Students who are victims of abuse at school tend to have worse educational outcomes",
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                        "text": "Children who are victims of physical or psychological abuse tend to have worse educational outcomes; and while evidence supporting a causal link is scarce, it is important to pay attention to these correlations.",
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                        "text": "A recent study used detailed household surveys from South Africa and Malawi to document the prevalence of violent discipline and subsequent changes in school progress among the affected children. The study found that children who were exposed to psychological and physical violence for discipline were more likely to have dropped out of school upon follow-up (Sherr et al. 2015).{ref}Sherr, L., Hensels, I. S., Skeen, S., Tomlinson, M., Roberts, K. J., & Macedo, A. (2015). Exposure to violence predicts poor educational outcomes in young children in South Africa and Malawi. International health, 8(1), 36-43.{/ref}",
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                        "text": "Other studies have found that violence against children also correlates with poor educational outcomes in the long run. In rich countries, for example, studies have found that individuals who are exposed to sexual and physical abuse in childhood are more likely to drop out of college (Boden et al. 2007 and Duncan 2000).{ref}Boden, J. M., Horwood, L. J., & Fergusson, D. M. (2007). Exposure to childhood sexual and physical abuse and subsequent educational achievement outcomes. Child abuse & neglect, 31(10), 1101-1114. Duncan, R. D. (2000). Childhood maltreatment and college drop-out rates: Implications for child abuse researchers. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 15(9), 987-995.{/ref}",
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                        "text": "These correlations also extend to other forms of violence and other types of educational outcomes. Within schools, for instance, violence between children tends to go together with poor learning outcomes. The following chart provides an example of this correlation. It shows, for a number of countries, the percentage of grade 8 students scoring above the low international benchmark in the TIMSS mathematics test, by their involvement in physical fights in school. Numeracy results were consistently higher among children not involved in physical fights in school.",
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                        "text": "School fighting vs Minimum proficiency in maths \u2013 UNESCO (2016){ref}Figure 4.3 in UNESCO (2016), Education for People and Planet, Global Education Monitoring Report. Available online ",
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                        "url": "http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0024/002457/245752e.pdf",
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                                "text": "here",
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                        "text": ".{/ref}",
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                "text": [
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                        "text": "Abuse in early years can undermine lifelong learning",
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                        "text": "Physical and psychological abuse are often linked to negative effects on mental and physical health. For example, it has been documented that anxiety and depression tend to arise more frequently among children who are abused.{ref}Norman, R. E., Byambaa, M., De, R., Butchart, A., Scott, J., & Vos, T. (2012). The long-term health consequences of child physical abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect: a systematic review and meta-analysis. PLoS medicine, 9(11), e1001349. Available ",
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                        "url": "http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1001349",
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                                "text": "here",
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                        "text": ".{/ref}",
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                        "text": " Again, these correlations do not imply causation. But there are good reasons to take them seriously. The ",
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                        "url": "http://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/wdr2018",
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                                "text": "World Development Report (2018)",
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                        "text": " notes that toxic stress in the early years can undermine lifelong health, learning, and behavior, because the hormones associated with the fight-or-flight response, such as cortisol, can inhibit physical growth and the children\u2019s susceptibility to illness. It is also the case that these hormones can impair the development of neural connections in parts of the brain that are critical for learning.",
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                        "text": "The following is an example of the type of brain development problems that scientists attribute to sensory neglect in early childhood. The source is Perry (2002).{ref}Perry, B. D. (2002). Childhood experience and the expression of genetic potential: What childhood neglect tells us about nature and nurture. Brain and mind, 3(1), 79-100.{/ref} The CT scan on the left is an image from a healthy three year old with a typical head size (at the 50th percentile of the distribution). The image on the right is from a three year old child suffering from 'severe sensory-deprivation neglect' \u2013 minimal exposure to language, touch, and social interactions. The brain of the child on the right is significantly smaller than average (3rd percentile) and has signs of deterioration (cortical atrophy).",
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                        "text": "Of course, this comparison is just an illustration, and it is hard to know with certainty whether the observed differences in brain size can be fully attributed to sensory-deprivation neglect. However, Perry finds that the average head size among a group of 40 children who had suffered sensory neglect is below the 5th percentile in the distribution \u2013 and while some recovery in brain-size was observed after children were removed from the neglectful environment, in most cases the gaps remained significant.",
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                        "text": "These findings are relevant to education because brain malleability is much greater earlier in life, and brain development is sequential and cumulative; which means that brain deterioration can lead to permanent impairments on skill acquisition.{ref}Perry (2002) writes: ",
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                                "text": "\"In following these globally-neglected children over time we observed some recovery of function and relative brain-size when these children were removed from the neglectful environment and placed in foster care. The degree of recovery over a year period however was inversely proportional to age in which the child was removed from the neglecting caregivers. The earlier in life and the less time in the sensory-depriving environment, the more robust the recovery.\"",
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                        "text": "{/ref}",
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                        "text": "Brain scan from a non-neglected child with an average head size (left) in comparison to a scan from a child suffering from severe sensory-deprivation neglect (right) \u2013\u00a0Perry (2002){ref}Perry, B. D. (2002). Childhood experience and the expression of genetic potential: What childhood neglect tells us about nature and nurture. Brain and mind, 3(1), 79-100.{/ref}",
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                        "text": "The interaction between violence and education operates in both directions",
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                        "text": "The interaction between violence and education operates in both directions, which means education can be used as an instrument to reduce the prevalence of violence. In Uganda, for example, a programme that provided life skills and vocational training for girls who had been forced into sexual acts, led to substantially fewer of these girls being victims of sexual abuse \u2013 an impact largely attributed to acquired skills (Bandiera et al. 2017).{ref}The evidence in this study comes from a Randomized Control Trial. The full reference is \u201cBandiera, Oriana; Buehren, Niklas; Burgess, Robin; Goldstein, Markus; Gulesci, Selim; Rasul, Imran; Sulaiman, Munshi. 2017. Women\u2019s Empowerment in Action : Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial in Africa. World Bank, Washington, DC. World Bank. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/28282 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.{/ref}",
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                        "text": "Similarly, parenting interventions that promote skills and knowledge among parents have shown positive effects on domestic violence. In Liberia, for example, a program that provided training in positive parenting and non-violent behaviour reduced violent punishment drastically (Sim et al. 2014).{ref}The evidence in this study comes from comparisons in reported punishment attitudes before and after the intervention, relative to the changes observed in a control group (i.e. the evidence comes from a Randomized Control Trial with a control group). The full reference is: Sim, A., Puffer, E., Green, E., Chase, R., Zayzay, J., Garcia-Rolland, E., & Boone, L. (2014). Parents make the difference: findings from a randomized impact evaluation of a parenting program in rural Liberia. New York: International Rescue Committee. {/ref}",
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        "type": "article",
        "title": "Child maltreatment and educational outcomes",
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        "dateline": "November 27, 2019",
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    "createdAt": "2019-11-27T20:35:07.000Z",
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    "updatedAt": "2020-04-30T14:00:12.000Z",
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