Socio‐economic conditions of child labor

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent and the effect of socio‐economic and demographic factors that lead to the phenomenon of child labor in the fishing sector of Balochistan (province of Pakistan). Design/methodology/approach - In order to explore the objectives, the paper first develops simple hypothesis followed by descriptive and regression analysis. Findings - The findings of the paper show that in the coastal areas about 30 percent of the children are involved in fishing. It is observed that the main cause of child labor is not poverty it comes out to be low quality of education, lack of job opportunity, and lack of development. Research limitations/implications - The data used for the assessment cover wide‐spread coastal areas but still have some limitation for several reasons. First, it is rapid assessment done to gain the first hand knowledge about the extent of child labor and their socio‐economic culture they belong too. Second, the official data do not include information on education and employment facilities in these towns. Thus, severity may not be truly reflected. Practical implications - Education with training needed to improve fishing skill may help in this regard. The state of education also needs improvement as high illiteracy and dropout rates reflect inadequacy. Originality/value - Extent of child labor in these towns is not reported by any official statistics. This paper attempts to provide the picture of the severity of the problems and its probable causes.