Adolescent Schooling and Adult Labor Supply: Evidence from COVID-19 School Closures and Reopenings in Kenya

This study identifies the impact of a shock to adolescent school availability—potentially affecting both household childcare burdens and child labor—on adult labor supply in the context of COVID-19-related school closures in Kenya. Using nationally representative bi-monthly panel data, the analysis compares changes in outcomes after schools partially reopened in October 2020 for households with children in a grade eligible to return against those with children in adjacent grades. An adolescent returning to school increases adults’ weekly work by 4.3 hours (27 percent) in the short run, concentrated among the most flexible margins of adjustment and particularly household agriculture. Contrary to evidence from high-income settings, overall effects are not gendered. There are no effects of the partial reopening on respondent childcare hours and heterogeneity in labor-supply effects by household characteristics does not align with predictions based on a childcare mechanism. Instead, the results indicate that increased adult work hours substitute for reduced child work in household agriculture as a child goes back to school. Impacts on labor supply are driven by less wealthy households with children engaged in household agriculture, while wealthier agricultural households substitute child labor with increased hired labor. The results show that adolescent schooling has important consequences for household production and labor-supply decisions. Poor agricultural households face particularly high opportunity costs for children’s education.