Definition
CHLHHWORKCHEM indicates whether the child household member selected for the child labor module (CHLHHINDEX) recently did work requiring exposure to dangerous chemicals or explosives.
This variable comes from a series of questions about possible hazardous conditions in children's work. If a "Yes" response was given for one of these hazardous conditions, questions about other hazards were not asked. Accordingly, the sum of all cases with "Yes" responses to any hazard identifies the total number of working children exposed to any (specified) hazard. This approach avoids double-counting working children but means one cannot identify multiple hazards in children's employment. For example, if a child is initially identified as carrying heavy loads, one cannot learn whether he or she is also exposed to dangerous chemicals.
The information in CHLHHWORKCHEM is taken from the household record and applies to regular household residents, not temporary visitors. Researchers may wish to exclude visitors using the RESIDENT variable (with visitors coded "2") when women, children, or births are the unit of analysis, and using the HHRESIDENT variable when household members are the unit of analysis.