Public Works and Children’s School Attendance: Evidence from Rural India

Rural public works programmes offer a guarantee of temporary employment to any household upon request. This article examines household survey data from India and measures the effect of public works participation on the school attendance of children in workers’ households. Since schooling and public works are determined simultaneously, it relies on an econometric technique that exploits heteroscedasticity in the public works decision rather than requiring an instrumental variable or exclusion restriction. It is found that higher public works intensity is associated with a small but significant decrease in the likelihood of full-time school attendance and that this effect does not appear to be driven disproportionately by women or girls specifically. It is important to consider intergenerational effects when evaluating the effectiveness of rural public works for long-term poverty alleviation.