Trade-Offs among Siblings: Children's Work and Schooling Outcomes in Indonesia

Amy Hsin, University of California, Los Angeles

Evidence from developing countries suggests that families allocate resources across children unequally, concentrating investments in health and education on a few. This paper examines the effect of sibling composition and household level demographic characteristics on how children's time is allocated across three major activities--schooling, market labor (both paid work performed outside the home and unpaid labor supplied to home production), and non-market labor such as housework and childcare. Using detailed time allocation data collected from Central Java, a multilevel analysis is employed. The preliminary results show that the age-sex composition of siblings is the main explanatory variable while parental characteristics and household wealth play a minor role, girls perform more non-market labor and boys spend more time performing market labor, and older siblings bear the burden of increased workload for their younger siblings.