Households may invest in the human capital development of their children not only for altruistic reasons but also as insurance against future income shocks. Therefore, the allocation of the child's time between school and work is a function of the risk preference of the household head. This paper analyzes the relationship between parental risk preferences and child labor decisions using recall information on child labor and a risk elicitation question. Results reveal that risk-averse households are more likely to send their children to work. Endogeneity issues are addressed by employing instrumental variables. These results suggest that child labor may be driven by the need to maximize the household's expected income from the child. Regarding heterogeneity, we find that the child labor effect of risk-aversion is higher for older children. Furthermore, the father's risk-aversion matters for the probability of child labor, while the intensity of child labor increases with the mother's risk-aversion. The findings call for an understanding of the behavioral context of the affected households and how risk preferences can affect the success of proposed policies to reduce child labor.

中文翻译：

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风险偏好和童工：计量经济学证据

家庭可能不仅出于利他主义的理由而投资于其子女的人力资本发展，而且还可以作为抵御未来收入冲击的保障。因此，孩子上学和工作之间的时间分配取决于户主的风险偏好。本文利用有关童工的回忆信息和风险引发问题，分析了父母风险偏好与童工决策之间的关系。结果表明，厌恶风险的家庭更有可能送孩子上班。内生性问题可以通过使用工具变量来解决。这些结果表明，童工可能是由于需要最大化家庭从童中获得的预期收入所致。关于异质性，我们发现风险规避对童工的影响较大。此外，父亲的风险规避与童工的可能性有关，而童工的强度则随着母亲的风险规避而增加。研究结果要求了解受影响家庭的行为背景，以及风险偏好如何影响拟议中减少童工现象的政策的成功。