O Impacto do Investimento Estrangeiro Direto no Trabalho Infantil: Uma Análise Para Países em Desenvolvimento

Abstract This article studies the effect of international trade, measured by trade liberalization (exports and imports as a proportion of GDP) and FDI (Foreign Direct Investment), in the intensive (hours worked) and extensive margins (participation in the labor market) of child labor. For that, we used data from 83 countries for the year 2010 and a strategy of robust estimation from instrumental variables to control endogeneity of income, FDI and trade liberalization. The results do not corroborate some of the main empirical studies in the literature, Davies e Voy (2009) and Edmonds e Pavcnik (2006), indicating that the FDI can increase child labor but reduce the number of hours worked, that is, the FDI can reduce the workload but not remove the child from work. For trade liberalization, net of per capita income, the results point to a reduction in the incidence of child labor in both margins. This result points to the existence of a direct effect of international trade on child labor and an indirect effect on countries’ per capita income.