Measuring Child Labour: The Indian Scenario
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Measuring Child Labour: The Indian Scenario Sourav Chakrabortty1 · Nilanjana Joseph Roy2 · Sugata Sen Roy3
© The Indian Econometric Society 2020
Abstract Child Labour has been one of the persistent problems that has affected development. In spite of the efforts at both the national and international levels by government, social organisations and international bodies, child labour is widely prevalent in most developing and underdeveloped countries. However, except for a few summary measures, there is no detailed measurement of the impact and severity of child labour. In this paper we address some of these measurement issues in the light of data collected by the National Sample Survey Office of India. Keywords Child labour · Incidence measures · Age of entry into labour force JEL Classification C10 · O15
Introduction In most underdeveloped and developing societies, the persistent and wide-spread prevalence of child labour is a major setback to the improvement in the quality of life of its people. Being cheap and at times being of specialized skill, child labour is often both economically and socially viable. However, besides burdening a child with the rigours of manual labour, child labour prevents him from pursuing his fundamental right to education and hence enriching his own life and the social * Sugata Sen Roy [email protected] Sourav Chakrabortty [email protected] Nilanjana Joseph Roy [email protected] 1
Ministry of Labour & Employment, DGMS, Hirapur, Dhanbad 826001, India
2
National Sample Survey Office, Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation, 164, Gopal Lal Thakur Road, Calcutta 700108, India
3
Department of Statistics, University of Calcutta, 35, Ballygunge Circular Road, Calcutta 700019, India
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Vol.:(0123456789)
Journal of Quantitative Economics
resources. Although the practice has been there from ancient times, the horrors during the industrial revolution brought to the fore the plight of children in labour and ever since, the identification and eradication of child labour has been a major concern for all societies. Although the existence of Child Labour and the need for its eradication are widely accepted in principle, in practice the issues involved remain more complex. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) observes, ‘....At the inter-governmental level, the problem of child labour has been caught up in a politically charged debate on human rights, labour standards, ethics and international trade. This partly accounts for the relatively slow progress being made towards concerted international action to tackle the problem. Besides, the socio-economics and sheer scale of child labour worldwide are still such that there simply is no easy, short term solution to the problem’ (ILO 1997).1 As a result the world community, under the leadership of ILO, initiated a three pronged intervention programme to tackle this menace. These initiatives can be classified broadly as law, direct intervention and market based schemes. Since the late 1980s the international legal
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