Child labor in urban Brazil: what is the role of the family structure?

The aim of this paper is to investigate the role of single parents on child labor in urban Brazil. We use data provided by Brazilian Demographic Census of 2010 and a probit model to account the choice for child labor. The results show that boys, age 14 whose parents have low level of education are more likely to work. We also find that children living with single mother have more likelihood to work than children who live in two-parent family, both at same level of income. The unfavorable condition of children in single-parent households only vanishes when the household income reaches a threshold level that strongly decreases the child laborâ€(tm)s propensity. The difference in child labor between the two groups of families is mainly due to their unobserved behaviors.