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Title: Were School Attendance and Child Labor Laws E ffective and for Whom? Evidence from the Early Twentieth Century United States
Citation Type: Miscellaneous
Publication Year: 2009
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Abstract: State compulsory schooling and child labor laws had signi cant impacts on theschooling of children in the United States between 1900 and 1920, increasing part timeschool attendance of 7 to 13 year olds by 4 to 7 percent and full time school attendanceby 2 to 14 percent. State legislation also had signi cant impacts on the employmentof children, helping to decrease child labor by between 2 and 4 percent. The impactof law varied by age, race, urban status, nativity, gender, and region. In the South we nd a larger e ect for rural children than for urban, while in the North we nd largerurban e ects. Also in the South, between 1900 and 1910, while laws had little e ecton school attendance they helped remove black children from the workforce. Boysand older teenagers were more likely to be inuenced by laws than girls and youngerteenagers. We nd the largest di erences between immigrant and native children in theNorth, where laws helped increase the attendance of immigrant children much morethan native children.
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Authors: Lingwall, Jeff
Publisher: Carnegie Mellon University
Data Collections: IPUMS USA
Topics: Education, Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Other
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