We estimate the long-term impact of child poverty on adult labour market outcomes in Indonesia, a middle-income country. Our instrumental variable estimation shows that a child who lived in a poor family when aged between eight and 17 years old suffers from an 87% earnings penalty as adults relative to a child who did not grow up in a poor family. The direct effect remains large after we account for a large set of mediators. Depending on the set of mediators that we use, we estimate an earnings penalty of between 85% and 90%. Similarly, we do not find any evidence that receiving various government transfer programs mediates the effect of growing up poor on earnings as adults.
Research Area
National
Research Topic
Keywords
child poverty
labour market outcomes
government transfer programs
Indonesia
Publication Type
Journal Article