Abstract

RODRIGUEZ LOPEZ, Abelardo. School nonattendance and child labor in Mexico: North-South, Gender, and Rural Divides. Anál. econ. [online]. 2021, vol.36, n.91, pp.33-62.  Epub Apr 21, 2021. ISSN 2448-6655.

This study addresses individual, household and contextual characteristics of children 12 to 17 years of age that determine nonattendance at school (naesc) and their integration to the labor market (pea) nationwide, the border states in the North and the South, including the Yucatan peninsula. The Infant Labor Module 2017 data was used to build probit models to estimate naesc and pea probabilities to assess marginal effects of observable characteristics while nonlinear decomposition was used to evaluate geographical, gender, and rural gaps. The differences in the probability of naesc and pea are not larger than .9 percent between the North and South. Although the differences between females and males are not larger than .2 percent fornaesc,they are as large as 12 percent for pea. Moreover, the differences between nonrural vs rural were consistently large: 9-14 percent for naesc, and 8-10 percent for pea. Government support in encouraging school attendance and reduction of children in the labor market showed significant marginal effects throughout.

Keywords : probit decomposition; youth; borders; rural; C35; F24; I25; J21; R10.