No harmless child labor: The effect of child labor on academic achievement in francophone Western and Central Africa

Abstract This study empirically examines the effect of child labor on academic achievement in 10 francophone Western and Central African countries. The data were taken from the Programme d’Analyse des Systemes Educatifs de la CONFEMEN and comprised characteristics of 25,288 grade six students across 1803 schools. Two-stage least squares analysis highlights that child labor undermines academic achievement regardless of subject, gender, and age. It lowers reading and mathematics scores for both genders and for children under 12 and over 13 years. Child labor therefore hinders human capital accumulation in African countries, and it takes place at the cost of future prosperity.