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Is Rural Child Labour Declining in India?

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  • Uma Kambhampati

    (School of Economics, University of Reading)

Abstract

This paper will look at the patterns of child work, schooling and 'idleness' across the major states of India and over two years - 1993 and 2004. We analyse two rounds of the NSS dataset to see whether the patterns of schooling and child work have changed over this period or not. The analysis concentrates on the rural sector and finds that the proportion of children in work has increased between 1993 and 2004. While current attendance at school has increased, the proportion of children whose primary activity is schooling has decreased. We hypothesise that this may be because, in a growing economy, there are more opportunities for employment and therefore a larger number of children are likely to combine work and schooling.

Suggested Citation

  • Uma Kambhampati, 2009. "Is Rural Child Labour Declining in India?," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2009-06, Department of Economics, University of Reading.
    • Handle: RePEc:rdg:emxxdp:em-dp2009-06
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Kambhampati, Uma S. & Rajan, Raji, 2006. "Economic growth: A panacea for child labor?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 426-445, March.
    2. 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.
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    4. Sonia Bhalotra, 2007. "Is Child Work Necessary?," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 69(1), pages 29-55, February.
    5. 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.
    6. Moshe Hazan & Binyamin Berdugo, 2002. "Child Labour, Fertility, and Economic Growth," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(482), pages 810-828, October.
    7. Eric Edmonds & Nina Pavcnik, 2002. "Does Globalization Increase Child Labor? Evidence from Vietnam," NBER Working Papers 8760, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Talia Bar & Kaushik Basu, 2009. "Children, Education, Labor, and Land: In The Long Run and Short Run," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(2-3), pages 487-497, 04-05.
    9. Chaudhri, D.P. & Wilson, E.J., 2000. "The Challenge of Child Labour in Rural India: A Multi-Dimensional Problem in Need of an Orchestrated Policy Response," Economics Working Papers wp00-02, School of Economics, University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia.
    10. 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.
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