Economic Growth, Structural Change and Decline of Child Labour in Agriculture: A Theoretical Perspective

Abstract

This chapter analyses the problems of child labour in general and also in agriculture, in particular. Child labour is a serious socio-economic problem in the world, especially in developing countries. Among the factors responsible for child labour, poverty is considered to be the most important one. Poor parents are forced to send their child(ren) to work to increase family earnings. Naturally, the child is deprived of schooling and education and grows to become an unskilled adult worker. The wage of the parent remains low in the next generation also. Thus a child labour trap is formed. The schooling and education of poor children and various welfare measures for poor households are found to be helpful in reducing child labour. This chapter tries to address the problem from macro perspective and explore a different route to curb child labour. It proposes that if economic growth takes place in the country, there will be structural change in the economy with declining share of agriculture in GDP. In effect, the workers will be transferred from agriculture to the non-agricultural manufacturing and services sector with higher productivity and higher wage. This will result in decline of poverty leading to decline of child labour in agriculture and also in the economy. This chapter has constructed a theoretical model using a general equilibrium framework to derive results pertaining to the above proposition. Another theoretical structure has been developed to show how schooling and acquiring human skill can break the child labour trap.

The authors are indebted to Prof. Sugata Marjit for his help in writing this chapter. The valuable comments on the chapter received from the participants of the workshop on ‘Understanding Child Labour in Agriculture’ jointly organized by the Australian APEC Study Centre and RMIT University at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, on April 8–9, 2019, are gratefully acknowledged.