CHILD LABOR - AN ECONOMIC-PERSPECTIVE

Starting with the questions ''what is a child?'' and ''what is work?'', the authors review data on child labour. Focusing on its determinants, they examine supply factors at household level, including family size, education, wages and risk of income loss, and factors affecting demand, including technology. They argue that given the established link between poverty and child labour there are certain advantages in interventions to improve the lot of employed children even if that induces an increase in the supply of child workers. Economic incentives and legislation are the two pillars on which efforts to help working children should be based.