Child Labor and Household Wealth: Theory and Empirical Evidence of an Inverted-U

Kaushik Basu, Sanghamitra Das and Bhaskar Dutta

No 2736, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Some studies on child labor have shown that 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 is an explicit modeling of the labor market. We develop a simple model which suggests an inverted-U relationship between land holdings and child labor. A unique data set from India that has child labor hours information confirms this hypothesis. It is shown that the turning point beyond which more land leads to a decline in child labor occurs at 3.6 acres of land per household, which is well below the observed maximum value of land-holding.

Keywords: labor markets; child labor; land-holding; education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D13 J20 O12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 22 pages
Date: 2007-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Published - published in: Journal of Development Economics, 2010, 91 (1), 8 - 14

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Related works:
Journal Article: Child labor and household wealth: Theory and empirical evidence of an inverted-U (2010)
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)
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