IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rdg/emxxdp/em-dp2004-12.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Economic Growth: A Panacea for Child Labour?

Author

Listed:
  • Uma Kambhampati

    (Department of Economics, University of Reading)

  • Raji Rajan

    (Department of Economics, University of Reading)

Abstract

In this paper, we test whether economic growth will lead to a decline in child labour. Our analysis brings together household data from the National Sample Survey of India and state level macro data from various sources to estimate a bivariate probit model analysing the impact of growth and development on the probability of child employment across 15 states in India. Our results lead us to conclude that contrary to popular wisdom, growth actually increases rather than decreases child labour. Pro-poor growth however does help to reduce child labour significantly amongst both boys and girls. we also find that macroeconomic prosperity has a greater impact on girls that on boys and we conclude that this is because in India's socio-cultural environment, girls are sent outside the home to work only in extreme circumstances. In this context, any improvement is likely to impact first upon girls and only then on boys.

Suggested Citation

  • Uma Kambhampati & Raji Rajan, 2004. "Economic Growth: A Panacea for Child Labour?," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2004-12, Department of Economics, University of Reading.
    • Handle: RePEc:rdg:emxxdp:em-dp2004-12
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Uma Kambhampati & Raji Rajan, 2008. "The 'Nowhere' Children: Patriarchy and the Role of Girls in India's Rural Economy," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(9), pages 1309-1341.
    2. Kaushik Basu, 1999. "Child Labor: Cause, Consequence, and Cure, with Remarks on International Labor Standards," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(3), pages 1083-1119, September.
    3. Sonia Bhalotra & Christopher Heady, 2003. "Child Farm Labor: The Wealth Paradox," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 17(2), pages 197-227, December.
    4. Ray, Ranjan, 2000. "Child Labor, Child Schooling, and Their Interaction with Adult Labor: Empirical Evidence for Peru and Pakistan," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 14(2), pages 347-367, May.
    5. Horrell Sara & Humphries Jane, 1995. "The Exploitation of Little Children: Child Labor and the Family Economy in the Industrial Revolution," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 485-516, October.
    6. Cigno, Alessandro & Rosati, Furio C. & Guarcello, Lorenzo, 2002. "Does Globalization Increase Child Labor?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 30(9), pages 1579-1589, September.
    7. Kaushik Basu, 1999. "International Labor Standards and Child Labor," Challenge, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(5), pages 80-93, September.
    8. Swaminathan, Madhura, 1998. "Economic growth and the persistence of child labor: Evidence from an Indian city," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 26(8), pages 1513-1528, August.
    9. Gaurav Datt & Martin Ravallion, 1998. "Why Have Some Indian States Done Better than Others at Reducing Rural Poverty?," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 65(257), pages 17-38, February.
    10. Uma Kambhampati, 2004. "Does Child Work Decrease with Parental Income?: The Luxury Axiom Revisited in India," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2004-02, Department of Economics, University of Reading.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Heather Congdon Fors, 2012. "Child Labour: A Review Of Recent Theory And Evidence With Policy Implications," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(4), pages 570-593, September.
    2. Nigar Hashimzade & Uma Kambhampati, 2009. "Growth and Inverted U in Child Labour: A Dual Economy Approach," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2009-07, Department of Economics, University of Reading.
    3. Drusilla K. Brown & Alan V. Deardorff & Robert M. Stern, 2009. "The Effects of Multinational Production on Wages and Working Conditions in Developing Countries," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Globalization And International Trade Policies, chapter 17, pages 623-687, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    4. Basu, Kaushik & Das, Sanghamitra & Dutta, Bhaskar, 2010. "Child labor and household wealth: Theory and empirical evidence of an inverted-U," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 8-14, January.
    5. Menon, Nidhiya & Rodgers, Yana van der Meulen, 2018. "Child labor and the minimum wage: Evidence from India," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 480-494.
    6. Oryoie, Ali Reza & Alwang, Jeffrey & Tideman, Nicolaus, 2017. "Child Labor and Household Land Holding: Theory and Empirical Evidence from Zimbabwe," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 45-58.
    7. Ersado, Lire, 2005. "Child Labor and Schooling Decisions in Urban and Rural Areas: Comparative Evidence from Nepal, Peru, and Zimbabwe," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 455-480, March.
    8. Ersado, Lire, 2002. "Child labor and school decisions in urban and rural areas," FCND briefs 145, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    9. Heather Congdon Fors, 2014. "Social Globalization and Child Labor: A Cross-country Analysis," The Developing Economies, Institute of Developing Economies, vol. 52(2), pages 125-153, June.
    10. Matthias Doepke & Fabrizio Zilibotti, 2003. "Voting with Your Children: A Positive Analysis of Child Labor Laws," UCLA Economics Working Papers 828, UCLA Department of Economics.
    11. repec:rdg:wpaper:em-dp2009-06 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Huamaní-Huapaya, Edson Raúl, 2019. "Persistencia Intergeneracional del Trabajo Infantil y Adolescente en Perú [Intergenerational Persistence of Child Labor in Peru]," MPRA Paper 101247, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. DeGraff, Deborah S. & Levison, Deborah, 2009. "Children's Work and Mothers' Work--What is the Connection?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(9), pages 1569-1587, September.
    14. Shunsuke Sakamoto, 2006. "Parental Attitudes toward Children and Child Labor: Evidence from Rural India," Hi-Stat Discussion Paper Series d05-136, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    15. Nengroo, Aasif Hussain & Bhat, Gulam Mohammad, 2017. "Why child labour? Evidences from homebased carpet weaving industry of Kashmir," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 50-56.
    16. Karina Acevedo González & Raúl Quejada Pérez & Martha Yánez Contreras, 2011. "Determinantes y consecuencias del trabajo infantil: un análisis de la literatura," Revista Facultad de Ciencias Económicas, Universidad Militar Nueva Granada, June.
    17. Shafiq, M. Najeeb, 2007. "Household schooling and child labor decisions in rural Bangladesh," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(6), pages 946-966, December.
    18. Dagdemir, Ozcan & Acaroglu, Hakan, 2010. "The effects of globalization on child labor in developing countries," Business and Economic Horizons (BEH), Prague Development Center (PRADEC), vol. 2(2), pages 1-12, July.
    19. Kathleen Beegle & Rajeev Dehejia & Roberta Gatti, 2003. "Child Labor, Crop Shocks, and Credit Constraints," NBER Working Papers 10088, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Matthias Doepke & Fabrizio Zilibotti, 2005. "The Macroeconomics of Child Labor Regulation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(5), pages 1492-1524, December.
    21. Basu, Kaushik, 2002. "A note on multiple general equilibria with child labor," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 74(3), pages 301-308, February.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:rdg:emxxdp:em-dp2004-12. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Alexander Mihailov (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/derdguk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.