将劳动者权利扩展至儿童的影响

中文摘要

全球每两名童工中就有一名在危险条件下工作。我们研究了玻利维亚一项法律的影响，该法律为童工引入了福利与保护，并暂时将事实上的法定工作年龄从14岁降至10岁。我们采用断点差分方法，利用该法律在不同年龄组之间的适用差异进行分析。14岁以下儿童的劳动有所减少，这些儿童的劳动因该法律而获得合法地位并受到监管；在面临检查的可能性较高的地区，劳动减少尤为明显。该法律被撤销后，这些效应随之消失。我们未发现工作安全得到改善的证据。因此，这些效应似乎并非由保障劳动者安全所带来的雇佣成本增加所驱动。相反，这些效应似乎源于最容易被察觉的儿童劳动形式的减少，这表明企业和父母（家庭）可能减少了对年幼儿童的雇佣，以尽量降低受到法律和社会制裁的风险。

Abstract

One out of two working children worldwide works in hazardous conditions. We study the effects of a law that introduced benefits and protections for child workers and temporarily lowered the de facto legal working age from 14 to 10 in Bolivia. We employ a difference-in-discontinuity approach that exploits the variation in the law’s application to different age groups. Work decreased for children under 14, whose work was newly legalized and regulated under the law, particularly in areas with a higher threat of inspections. The effects disappear after the law is reversed. We do not find evidence of improvements in work safety. Thus, the effects do not appear to be driven by increased hiring costs to ensure worker safety. Instead, the effects appear to be driven by a reduction in the most visible forms of child work, suggesting that firms and parents (households) may have reduced employment of young children to minimize the risk of being subject to legal and social sanctions.