Abstract Child labour in India remains a continuing social and economic concern despite legal safeguards and welfare interventions. Although statistical data indicates a decline in the number of working children between Census 2001 and Census 2011, the persistence of millions of children in labour activities reflects deeper structural issues. This study argues that child labour in India is not a biological or individual failure but a structural outcome of poverty, income instability, educational constraints, and informal sector dominance. Using secondary data sources such as Census reports and related policy documents, the paper examines the magnitude, rural–urban distribution, gender patterns, and sectoral concentration of child labour. The findings suggest that a large proportion of child labour is located within agriculture, brick kilns, small-scale enterprises, and semi-urban service sectors. Girls are often involved in unpaid domestic work, making female child labour less visible in official statistics. The study further explains how early labour participation limits educational attainment and skill development, which later confines individuals to insecure informal employment. This condition contributes to the continuation of intergenerational poverty. The paper concludes that effective reduction of child labour requires structural reforms in livelihood security, education quality, wage stability, and stronger implementation of existing laws. Keywords: Child Labour, Intergenerational Poverty, Informal Economy, Educational Constraints, Rural–Urban Inequality, Gender Dimensions, Structural Inequality.
This study discusses the threat of working children's right to education. The aim of this research is to identify the regulation of working children in Indonesian laws and regulations and to find an ideal model of protecting the right to education for working children. The method used is normative legal research. Researchers conducted a study of legislation to see the synchronization between legislation. Human rights theory and statutory theory are used as analytical tools to examine research results. The results of this study conclude that first, the government has protected children's rights as stipulated in several laws and regulations. There are clear provisions regarding the rights of working children. Second, the right ideal model to protect the educational rights of working children is to use a circle of protection. The circle of protection is a circle of protection for working children so that their right to education is fulfilled. In the circle of protection there are parties that protect working children, namely the government, parents, employers, and the community.
Child labour continues to be a major concern in developing countries, especially as continuously employed child labourers will have extreme difficulty attending school. In this study, we consider the issue in Bangladesh where education rates have recently stagnated despite economic growth. The Bangladeshi economy is driven by its export sector, which relies on low-cost labour that may keep children from school. To test the claim, we combine novel spatial data on the locations of over 11,000 exporting firms with over 95,000 similarly geo-located child survey responses from three waves of the Bangladesh Household Income and Expenditure Survey. Using matching techniques, we show that, when controlling for external factors, such as household income, students living closer to an exporting firm are more likely to report work and less likely to report attending school, providing evidence to suggest that the exporting sector may be influencing macro trends in Bangladesh school attendance.
Child Labour is a big problem in India and there are10.1 million working children below the age of 14 in India, the share of U.P. is 2.17 million which is 21% of total working children (Census 2011).This study is an attempt to find the social effect of being Child labour in a population of school drop-outs at the elementary level in Central Uttar Pradesh. The study is based on the primary data collected from 500 school drop-outs and their households through a predesigned well-structured questionnaire. The objective of the study is to establish if there is a relation between high school drop-outs and prevalence of child labour and conduct a comparative study of the social behavior including psychological effects among working children and non-working children in the studied population of school dropouts. Out of 500 school drop-outs, 246 (49 %) worked as child labour. Pearson Correlation method is used to establish the relationship between high school dropout and the prevalence of child labour and a strong positive correlation is found among them. Out of the total surveyed drop-outs who suffered from anti-social impact in form of involvement in alcohol or drug abuse, criminal offense, stealing or suffering from mental or physical discomfort a visibly large number are working children. The findings of the study showed a higher incidence of anti-social involvement among child labour in the sample, suggesting child labour does have an adverse social impact on society and also on the individual
Abstract The present paper delves into the intricacies of trade on child labour. Theoretically, developing countries exporting child labour-intensive products can experience increase in child labour employment (termed as substitution effect). However, if trade creates employment opportunities for parents and leads to a more equitable income distribution, child labour incidence may fall due to the income effect. In this context, the present paper investigates the impact of trade liberalisation on child labour. For this purpose, we have identified the net exporter of child labour-intensive goods for a sample of 39 developing countries. Instrumental Variable estimation results indicate substitution effect for the period 2002–2019. The results suggest that trade alone may not be enough to eradicate child labour. Supporting domestic policies like education, health, and more equitable income distributions can have a favourable impact on reducing child labour incidence. Prioritising investments in education, social protection, and inclusive economic opportunities is essential to ensure that the gains from trade liberalisation translate into meaningful and sustained reductions in child labour.
Child labour remains a serious socio-economic and developmental challenge in India, particularly in economically backward regions. This paper examines the multidimensional deprivation experienced by working children in Nizamabad District using a composite index approach. Primary data were collected from 313 working children engaged in various sector activities. Standardised indices were constructed for health status, educational status, work burden, leisure availability, and psychological well-being, which were aggregated into an Overall Well-being Index (OWI). The results reveal low to moderate levels of well-being across all dimensions, indicating that child labour adversely affects children’s holistic development. The study highlights the need for integrated policy interventions focusing on education, health, reduced work intensity, leisure, and psychological support.
The issue of child labour and its consequences on developing economies during COVID-19 is significant to debate as the problem has hurt children the most in the current situation. Due to the Pandemic, children suffer more as many families face loss of lives, reduced livelihood, and economic opportunities. Children participating in the labour force belonging South Asian countries will face a surplus of Child Labour due to COVID-19 in the coming years.To the best of our knowledge, no such studies have considered the issue in hand. The study has worked on a "special survey evaluating the Socio-Economic Impact of COVID-19 on the well-being of people" published by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics. This study focuses on seeing the consequences of COVID-19 on the labour market, especially child labour. The analysis reveals overwhelming findings. It is suggested that the government should provide parenting support to help families on the verge of entering into poverty as COVID-19 has affected the income-generating opportunities. Further, it is recommended to coordinate with all the key players of the institutions to cover the problem of food security, child protection, and child anti-trafficking problems as these are the significant problems that children are facing. Moreover, Job opportunities should be created to facilitate youth employment; those near reaching their legal age to work should be included in the focused group to prevent child labour.
Abstract Despite the efforts of formal and informal institutions to manage child labour, current policies have not led to the realization of goals in this area. This study aimed to design and validate a workplace abuse questionnaire among the child labourers (WAQCL). The sample for the study was 250 Iranian child labourers, living in Tehran. The WAQCL investigated four factors (neglect, psychological, physical and sexual abuse) and consisted of 23 items. The questionnaire was found to have good internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha ≥0.8) and good content validity (0.932). The instrument can help to assess workplace abuse in health care practice.
The child labour is one of pressing problems is not only the problem of India, but it is a problem of almost all the developing countries. The paper examines the nature and magnitude of child labour in the national capital region of Delhi. The child labour can be defined as the child working populations is known as child labour; whose age is lie within the age-group of 5 to 14years. In Delhi, the majority of child labour is engaged in various law key jobs or unorganized sectors (Garment industry, factories) which are hazardous conditions. The census record indicates that there is multiple growths in child labour which has been experienced during the census periods 2001 to 2011 in the capital. In this study a cause-effect relationship has been established of child labour during this inter-censual periods. Lastly, there are some of positive suggestions for further improvements in child labour in the capital.
The aim of this study is to investigate the current situation of child labour in Kathmandu's hotel and restaurant industry. Utilizing a quantitative research design, the study study focuses on male child workers who are employed in hotels, restaurants, tea shops, bus stations, and other informal sectors in Kathmandu. Using the convenient sampling method, a total of 147 male child labourers were selected. Frequency distributions and chi-square tests were used among the univariate, bivariate and multivariate statistical methods. The results showed that the Janajatis and the Dalits were excessively represented among the child labourers, with the majority (61.22%) being between the ages of 12 and 15. The majority of children were from those families with unstable housing, high parental illiteracy (51.70%), and poor economic circumstances. Of the respondents, more than 81% had dropout of school, mainly as a result of personal choice, lack of good parenting, or household duties. These kids were frequently working over 12 hours a day at physically demanding jobs, mainly cooking, dishwashing, and customer service. Health problems also mainly; skin disease, throat infections, and hand pain were also found with them. Particularly, 61.2% of the respondents reported that they were unhappy with their jobs. Working hours and job dissatisfaction (p < 0.01), age and dropout rates (p < 0.05), and parental literacy and school enrolment (p < 0.01) were found statistically significant in the bivariate analysis. These findings denote that child labour has deeper roots in systemic injustice, social marginalisation, and a lack of educational support, not just an economic problem.
