Publication Type
Working Paper
Version
publishedVersion
Publication Date
6-2025
Abstract
This study evaluates the impact of the midday meal program in India on the prevalence of child labor for upper primary school going children. The staggered implementation of the largest school feeding program in the world across states provides exogenous variation in exposure. Using the nationally representative National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) data, we find that exposure to the program reduced prevalence of child labor by 47 percent relative to children in never-treated states, with no significant difference in impact between boys and girls. The effects were primarily driven by a decline in household labor supply, especially performance of household chores. These findings are further corroborated by an increase in school attendance for both genders. Our findings are robust to a battery of sensitivity analyses and placebo tests, and shed important insights on unintended consequences of a school feeding program.
Discipline
Labor Economics
Research Areas
Applied Microeconomics
First Page
1
Last Page
49
Citation
CHAWLA, Vardaan; FUJII, Tomoki; KHANNA, Arpita; and ROHAN, Ray.
Do government benefit programs reduce child labor?: Causal evidence from the Midday Meal Scheme in India. (2025). 1-49.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soe_research/2840
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://lkyspp.nus.edu.sg/docs/default-source/aci/acirp202505.pdf