as a consequence child labour was reduced by per cent on average sparrow the effect becomes stronger as children grow older since the incidence of child labour is higher among adolescents and because the size of the scholarship increases with age however the work by hoddinott et al the authors find that participation in the public works component of the programme contributes to a reduction in the average number of hours worked in agriculture for yearold boys and for yearold girls with a parallel reduction in domestic hours worked for younger boys