Household Access to Microcredit and Child Work in Rural Malawi

SummaryThis paper examines the effect of household access to microcredit upon work by 7–11-year-old children in rural Malawi. Given that microcredit organizations foster household enterprises wherein much child labor is engaged, this paper aims to discover whether access to microcredit might increase work by children. It is found that, in the season of peak labor demand, household access to microcredit, measured as self-assessed credit limits at microcredit organizations, raises the probability of child work in households with average landholdings and retail sales enterprises.