Child labour and educational success in Portugal

The debate on child labour has focused mainly on developing countries.
However, child labour also persists in some developed countries. Portugal is an
example of a country where child labour is still a matter of concern as about 8-12
percent of Portuguese children aged 6-15 may be classified as workers. This paper
studies the patterns of child labour in Portugal and assesses the consequences of
working on the educational performance of Portuguese children. In particular, we
draw a distinction between domestic and economic child work and examine the effect
of these two types of labour on school success.a
An intermediate step in our analysis is
an assessment of the factors that determine the duration of work and the probability of
succeeding in school. Our analysis reveals that the two types of labour have
asymmetric effects. While economic work hinders educational success, domestic
work does not appear to be harmful. We also find that, after controlling for a host of
relevant socio-economic variables, factors such as a child’s interest in school and
educational ambitions appear to have a direct and large effect on boosting educational
success and reducing economic work.