A Randomized Impact Evaluation of the Philippine Department of Labor and Employment's KASAMA Program

Of the 3.21 million Filipino children identified as participating in unlawful child labor, about 3 million of these children do so in hazardous conditions (where chemical, physical and biological hazards exist). In their continued efforts to decrease child labor, the Philippines Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) is implementing Kabuhayan Para sa Magulang ng Batang Manggagawa (KASAMA) in some of the Philippines' poorest provinces. In the KASAMA program, DOLE focuses on improving access to sources of income for the parents of child laborers. Parents are provided a package of assistance composed of livelihood trainings and a grant for the purchase of equipment, tools and raw materials to be used in their livelihood undertaking.

The goal of this project is to evaluate the impact of the KASAMA program on child labor and time allocation, as well as on household well-being. It is motivated by the question of whether it is possible to sustainably change how families generate their livelihoods in a way that eliminates child labor. The evaluation will be conducted across 164 communities, including 2,296 households, where communities will be randomly assigned whether to receive the KASAMA program. Whether and how sustainable livelihood projects influence child labor is an important research question as sustainable livelihood promotion has become the centerpiece of anti-child labor programming.