Child labor and household wealth: Theory and empirical evidence of an inverted-U

Kaushik Basu, Sanghamitra Das and Bhaskar Dutta

Journal of Development Economics, 2010, vol. 91, issue 1, 8-14

Abstract: Some studies on child labor have shown that, at the level of the household, greater land wealth leads to higher child labor, thereby casting doubt on the hypothesis that child labor is caused by poverty. This paper argues that the missing ingredient may be an explicit modeling of the labor market. We develop a simple model which suggests the possibility of an inverted-U relationship between land holdings and child labor. Using a unique data set that has child labor hours it is found that, controlling for child, household and village characteristics, the turning point beyond which more land leads to a decline in child labor occurs around 4Â ac of land per household.

Keywords: Child; labor; Land-holding; Labor; markets (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (111)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Child Labor and Household Wealth: Theory and Empirical Evidence of an Inverted-U (2009)
Working Paper: Child Labor and Household Wealth: Theory and Empirical Evidence of an Inverted-U (2008)
Working Paper: Child labor and household wealth: Theory and empirical evidence of an inverted-U (2007)
Working Paper: Child Labor and Household Wealth: Theory and Empirical Evidence of an Inverted-U (2007)
Working Paper: Child Labor and Household Wealth: Theory and Empirical Evidence of an Inverted-U (2007)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:deveco:v:91:y:2010:i:1:p:8-14

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