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The Brazilian Government created the Bolsa Familia program to combat poverty and the insertion of so many children into the labor market. This program is an income transfer program subject to certain conditions such as a minimum school attendance for children under 17 years of age. In 2006, almost half of the people with an income per capita of R$300.00 (US$139.53) per month declared that they received this benefit. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of Bolsa Familia on child labor in Brazil in 2006.

The authors used a propensity score matching model with data from the National Household Sample Survey PESQUISA NACIONAL POR AMOSTRA DE DOMICÍLIOS (PNAD), for 2006.

Results indicate that the program increased the number of hours of child labor in Brazil. However, this outcome might be explained by the fact that those families who received Bolsa Familia were also those with higher socioeconomic vulnerability. Thus, they need to guarantee their survival with the income generated via child labor.

The Brazilian Government needs to invest not only in monetary transfer policies but also in the improvement of the job market to create opportunities for the social development of children.

The contribution of the paper is the investigation into the effect of the Bolsa Familia program on the average time allocated to child labor; the authors find that this time allocation could be reduced by requiring a compulsory school attendance.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of interstate migration of individuals with different qualification levels on human capital formation in the migrant’s place of origin.

A dynamic panel model with data from the National Household Sample Survey (Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios (PNAD)), between 2001 and 2013, is used.

The results indicate that the migration of high-skilled people boosts school attendance in fifth grade elementary school and first year high school, but it does not affect the levels of those entering first year in higher education. However, the migration of low-skilled workers discourages people from entering higher education, as those living in less developed areas do not need higher education qualifications to get higher incomes. Thus, they migrate to developed areas with the education levels they already have. The brain gain hypothesis is not, therefore, confirmed in the context of higher education attendance.

This paper’s contribution is its investigation into the effect of interstate migration on human capital formation in Brazil, through testing the brain gain hypothesis in a national context. In addition, it also analyzes the impact of the migration of people of low and intermediate qualification levels on human capital, with a view to verifying if the mobility of people with other levels of qualification could discourage the formation of human capital.