Introduction 

Child Labour

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| IEG 7th March, 2008 , Praveen kuamr 

 
  

ILO : distinguishes child labour from economically active Children by asserting

that a child above the age of 12 Who does light ,part time work, that is not
hazardous may be economically active but is not to be counted as a child labourer

India:Law
India:Law

Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act 1986,

1986,

seeks to prohibit employment of children below 14 years in hazardous

occupations and processes and regulates the working conditions in other
employments. Recently, Government has also decided to include children
working as domestic servants and those working in dhabas/roadside eateries
/motels etc. in the category of hazardous occupations.

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Child labour 

Child labour in figures (global estimates 2002) = knowledge

National surveys (50)

( 1998-
1998-2002)

Rapid assessments&
Baseline studies (100)
(2000--2003)
(2000

246 million child labourers

Worldwide
( age 5-
5-17)

146 million children

Aged 6-
6-11
Majority boys Out of school

Majority girls 283 million children

Aged 12-
12-17 out of school
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  †share 
m Pan, Bidi & Cigarettes 18
Construction 15

Domestic workers* 12

 Spinning/ weaving 11

 Brick-kilns, tiles 9.5

 Dhabas/ Restaurants/ Hotels/ Motels* 7.7

 Auto-workshop, vehicle repairs 7

 Gem-cutting, Jewellery 6.2

 Carpet-making 5.8

m Ceramic 4.1

mm Agarbati, Dhoop & Detergent making 2.7

m Others 2
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he global experiences«««..

Xritain : Roberts Peel's factories act 1802

Incidence of child labour remained very high

U.S experience: child labor control act 1837

Faster decline in child labour between 1880-1910.

What do other studies say««««.?

Moehling 1999: law had very little effect on the incidence of
child labour in Britain

Should the govt intervene «««««?

here is need for formal empirical analysis of the effect of the law on child
labour , the broad evidence suggests that the effect may not be what people take
it to be at face value . Indeed it can be shown that when it comes to the use of a
fine for| employing

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| children the effect can be the opposite of what we may expect
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Should the firms employing child be fined?

A house hold sends its children to work in

order to escape poverty and starvation , now
here is a new law whereby firms are fined
whenever they are caught using child
clearly this will cause the wage for child labour
to drop this is because children are now less
input for firms. But this in turn will mean
children will have to work even harder to be
able to earn the target income (subsistence-
level) Empirically , consider a lobour market
in which each household consists one adult and
several children in a labour market , adults and
children are perfect substitutes. he adult
always supplies labour perfectly inelastically ,
where as children work only to the extent of
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subsistence.
 

Children will work only when adult wage

rate is below s. let w be the adult wage in
the economy .
if w>s no child labour evolves.
What happens when govt comes into
picture.?
Govt imposes a fine =D rupees .
Let p be the probability for a firm to be
caught so every time the firm will be fined
= pD( punishment cost).
Let Wc be the child wage rate firm will
employ a child only when Wc<pD.
herefore when w<s household sends its
children to work let e be the number of
Children sent out to work, so e will be chosen
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Just to reach subsistence target. 
 Consider the case when govt tries to raise the fine .
his will mean that employing children will be more
expensive for the firms , because with each child
there is risk of being caught and having to pay the
larger fine to the govt. so as the penalty rises the
market will make sure that child wage will drop.
And once the child wage drops each household will
be forced to send more children to work to meet the
subsistence consumption target, so herein lies the
essence of Pathology ,an increased fine for employing
children could raise the child labour

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Sources : ILO and Planning Commission Of India

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