Basu, Kaushik, Das, Sanghamitra and Dutta, Bhaskar (2008) Child labor and household wealth: theory and empirical evidence of an inverted-U. Working Paper. Coventry: University of Warwick, Department of Economics. Warwick economic research papers (No.888).

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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 4 acres of land per household.

Item Type:	Working or Discussion Paper (Working Paper)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor
Divisions:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Economics
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Child labor, Labor economics, Home economics, Labor supply, Agricultural laborers
Series Name:	Warwick economic research papers
Publisher:	University of Warwick, Department of Economics
Place of Publication:	Coventry
Official Date:	16 December 2008
Dates:	Date Event 16 December 2008 Submitted
Number:	No.888
Number of Pages:	25
Institution:	University of Warwick
Status:	Not Peer Reviewed
Access rights to Published version:	Open Access (Creative Commons)
Funder:	MacArthur Foundation Network for Inequality and Economic Performance (MFNIEP), National Science Foundation (U.S.) (NSF)
Grant number:	SES-0079079 (NSF)

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