Types and Causes of Child Labour

Abstract

The practice of sending children to work is prevalent widely throughout the globe, particularly in developing countries. Although there have been diminutions in the incidence of child labour over the recent periods, including in India, the size of child labour employment in various forms, continues to be quite large in such economies. The different types or forms that working children are found to be in are unique in the sense that in each category, they perform specific work and face specific problems. In this chapter, we describe different types and categories in which working children perform, and try to locate the proximate causes for the existence of child labour.

Notes: This chapter draws from and reuses with permission the materials contained in the following papers of the author(s):

(a) Biswajit Chatterjee and Runa Ray (2016), “Impact of Trade Restriction on Child Labour Supply and the Role of Parents’ Utility Function: A Two Sector General Equilibrium Analysis” in Malabika Roy and Saikat Sinha Roy (eds.), International Trade and International Finance, Springer 2016.

(b) Runa Ray (2015), “Trade versus Non-Trade Policy in a Two Sector General Equilibrium Framework”, Business and Economics Journal 2015, Volume 6 Issue 2, 2015, Business Economic Journal, an open access journal.

(c) Runa Ray (2014), “Import Restrictions, Capital Accumulation and Use of Child Labour–A General Equilibrium Analysis”, Chapter 5 of the book edited by Ambar Nath Ghosh and Asim K. Karmark (eds.), Analytical Issues in Trade, Development and Finance, Essays in Honour of Biswajit Chatterjee, Springer India, 2014, as Part I of Chapter 6 of the present book;

(d) Runa Ray and Biswajit Chatterjee (2010c), “Education Subsidy, Adult Unemployment and the Incidence of Child Labour in an Open Economy: A Three Sector General Equilibrium Analysis”, Vol 57, No 4, Jan–March 2010, The Indian Economic Journal, pages 37–59.

Also used is

(i) ILO Report “Global Estimates of Child Labour: Results and Trends, 2012–2016”, Published by International Labour Office (ILO), Geneva, 2017.

(ii) www.alliance.org.