School attendance has declined sharply across the U.S. over the past decade. A new study by Lucy C. Sorensen of the Learning Policy Institute and Melissa Arnold Lyon, Ji Hyun Byeon, and Stephen B. Holt of the University at Albany finds that local demand for illegal child labor is one factor contributing to the decline in public school attendance among children ages 6 to 17.
The researchers define illegal child labor as the “employment of minors in violation of the child labor regulations in the Fair Labor Standards Act.” Industries most prone to such violations—deemed “high-violation” industries—include amusement parks, arcades, specialty food stores, and farms.
Using U.S. Census Bureau and Department of Labor data from 2005 to 2023, the authors estimate the causal relationship between local reliance on illegal child labor, youth employment in high-violation industries, and public-school attendance. They find that a 10-percentage-point increase in the share of children employed in high-violation industries lowers local public school attendance by 6.9 percentage points overall. The impacts are more pronounced across student subgroups: attendance drops by 7.9 percentage points for 16- and 17-year-olds, 20.2 percentage points for Black youth, and 29.1 percentage points for children living on farms.
Illegal child labor remains a growing problem—the number of reported violations has increased by 400 percent in the past decade. The researchers urge policymakers to strengthen labor regulations, enforcement mechanisms, and educational support services to address declining attendance and better protect vulnerable youth, particularly low-income and immigrant children.