Rural Roads, Child Labor, and Schooling in Rural Ethiopia

New roads bring new opportunities including access to employment. However, new employment opportunities might encourage early school dropout and school absenteeism. We investigate the link between rural roads, children's labor allocation, and educational outcomes by focusing on the recent Ethiopian road construction program. In the analysis, we combine household panel data with novel road network data. To address endogeneity concerns, we combine a difference-in-difference estimation model with a matching technique. Our findings consistently show that road access does not encourage school absenteeism or school dropouts to join the labor force. The findings remain consistent across gender and age groups.