Working Paper: NBER ID: w25400
Authors: Richard B. Baker; John Blanchette; Katherine Eriksson
Abstract: The boll weevil spread across the Southern United States from 1892 to 1922 having a devastating impact on cotton cultivation. The resulting shift away from this child labor–intensive crop lowered the opportunity cost of attending school, and thus the pest increased school enrollment and attendance. We investigate the insect’s long run affect on educational attainment using a sample of adults in 1940 linked back to themselves in childhood in the county in which they were likely educated. Both whites and blacks who were young (ages 4 to 9) when the boll weevil arrived saw increased educational attainment by 0.25 to 0.35 years. These findings are not driven by concurrent shocks and are not sensitive to linking method or sample selection. Our results demonstrate the potential for conflict between child labor in agriculture and educational attainment.
Keywords: Agricultural shocks; Educational attainment; Boll weevil; Child labor
JEL Codes: N32; O13
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Boll weevil (Y60) | Educational attainment (I21) |
| Agricultural shock (Q19) | Educational attainment (I21) |
| Boll weevil (Y60) | Opportunity cost of schooling (I21) |
| Opportunity cost of schooling (I21) | Educational attainment (I21) |
| Boll weevil (Y60) | Increased schooling years for white children (I21) |
| Boll weevil (Y60) | Increased schooling years for black children (I24) |