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It is estimated that one in two children in cocoa-growing communities is involved in child labor, threatening their education, health and overall well-being. While previous interventions to reduce child labor have focused on improving school attendance or enforcing labor regulations, no study has directly addressed the underlying economic constraints that may drive child labor in cocoa-producing communities: financial constraints of households to pay for adult labor during the labor-intensive cocoa harvest season. This study aims to fill this gap by analyzing whether fully subsidized provision of labor to cocoa farms can serve as an effective strategy to reduce child labor. We conducted a cluster-randomized controlled trial (RCT) in 55 villages in the cocoa-growing regions of Ghana, comprising 1,171 households. Households in treatment villages were provided with adult labor to assist with cutting cocoa pods from trees, breaking pods and transporting cocoa beans to the farm. These are activities that typically involve child labor in these areas. The policy led to a 9.7 percentage points decrease in child labor in cacao from a baseline incidence of 37%. A broader measure of child labor, including all child labor activities, showed a reduction of 10.6 percentage points from an initial prevalence of 66%. These results suggest that financial constraints drive child labor in these communities, and that providing fully subsidized adult labor during the critical cocoa harvest period can address this root cause of child labor. Our findings also suggest that providing financial support to employ adult labor is more effective and efficient than most previous interventions to reduce child labor in cocoa regions.
| Keyword | Impact Evaluation |
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