International Migration and Child labour in Developing Countries

This paper investigates the labor market effect of international migration on child work in countries of origin. We use an original cross-country survey dataset, which combines information on international migration with detailed individual-level data on child labour at age 5–14 in a wide range of developing countries. By exploiting both within and cross-country variation and controlling for country fixed effects, we find strong and robust evidence on the role of international mobility of workers in reducing child labour in disadvantaged households through changes in the local labour market.