The causal impacts of child labor law in Brazil: some preliminary findings

Abstract

This paper investigates the causal impact of the change in law of December 1998 that increased the minimum legal age of entry into the labor force from 14 to 16. We used a difference-in-differences (DD) approach to estimate the impact of this law change on labor force participation rates as a whole, as well as for the formal and informal sectors separately. Our results showed that the ban reduced participation rates for boys by 4 percentage points and that this effect was mostly driven by the informal sector. We found no effect on girls.