The Effect of ILO Minimum Age Conventions on Child Labor and School Attendance: Evidence From Aggregate and Individual-Level Data

SummaryChild labor has always been a core concern of the International Labor Organization (ILO). This paper investigates whether ILO conventions have contributed to reducing the scale of the problem. Two approaches to answering the question are used. First, evidence based on country-level data show that, by 1990, child labor was not less and school attendance was not greater in countries having ratified ILO conventions compared with non-ratifying states. Second, in individual-level data on school attendance from the 1990s, little evidence can be found for an increase in school attendance for children protected by ILO Convention 138 compared with unprotected children.