Child labor as a barrier to foundational skills: Evidence from Bangladesh and Pakistan

According to the International Labor Organization, at least 160 million children ages 5 to 17 around the world were involved in some form of child labor at the beginning of 2020, including 79 million children performing hazardous labor. This article uses recent representative data from Bangladesh and Pakistan to investigate the relationship between foundational skills and child labor engagements for 12- to 14-year-old children. It found a consistent negative association between child labor and reading and numeracy foundational skills. In particular, it found that engagement in hazardous child labor had large negative associations with reading and numeracy foundational skills. It also found negative associations between engagement in economic labor and reading foundational skills. Finally, the article found that intense engagement in household labor was also negatively associated with foundational skills. It discusses the implications of these findings which paint a deeply concerning picture of the challenges ahead of the global community to ensure that all children acquire foundational skills (and beyond). It notes that systematic efforts to define, document, and measure child labor will be crucial to better understand the negative implications of child labor for foundational learning and the potential policy solutions to address these impacts.