This is a unique account of working-class childhood during the British industrial revolution, first published in 2010. Using more than 600 autobiographies written by working men of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Jane Humphries illuminates working-class childhood in contexts untouched by conventional sources and facilitates estimates of age at starting work, social mobility, the extent of apprenticeship and the duration of schooling. The classic era of industrialisation, 1790–1850, apparently saw an upsurge in child labour. While the memoirs implicate mechanisation and the division of labour in this increase, they also show that fatherlessness and large subsets, common in these turbulent, high-mortality and high-fertility times, often cast children as partners and supports for mothers struggling to hold families together. The book offers unprecedented insights into child labour, family life, careers and schooling. Its images of suffering, stoicism and occasional childish pleasures put the humanity back into economic history and the trauma back into the industrial revolution.

This book examines the facts concerning child labour in Latin America, how it varies over time; across countries; and in comparison to other areas of the world. It aims to improve the understanding of root causes and consequences of persistent child labour and to contribute to the policy debate.

Children throughout the world are engaged in a great number of activities classifiable as work. These range from relatively harmless, even laudable, activities like helping parents in their domestic chores, to morally and physically dangerous ones like soldiering and prostitution. If we leave out the former, we are left with what are generally called "economic" activities. Only a small minority, less than 4 percent of all working children, are estimated to be engaged in what ILO defines as the "unconditional" worst forms of child labour. The absolute number of children estimated to be engaged in the latter is, however, a stunning 8.4 million. Should we only be concerned about the worst forms of child labour? Most forms of child labour other than the worst ones have valuable learning-by-doing elements. Furthermore, child labour produces current income. If the family is credit rationed, child labour relaxes the liquidity constraint and increases current consumption. There is thus a trade-off between present and future consumption. To the extent that current consumption has a positive effect on future health (hence, on the child's future earning capacity and, more generally, utility), this trade-off may be lower than one might think. This book provides a blend of theory, empirical analysis and policy discussion. The first three chapters develop a fairly comprehensive theory of child labour, and related variables such as fertility, and infant mortality. Chapter 4, concerned with the effects of trade, contains both theory and cross-country empirical evidence. The remaining chapters are country studies, aimed at illustrating and testing different aspects of the theory in different geographical contexts. These chapters apply the latest developments in microeconometric methodology for dealing with endogeneity, unobserved heterogeneity, and the evaluation of public intervention.

Contents: Stop Child Labour, Child Labour in Weaving Industry, Child Labour: Targeting the Intolerable, Children s Health and the Environment, Helping Your Child Learn, For a Broader Approach to Education, Population Growth and Education, Will Education go to Market, Private Education, Corporate Ambitions in Education, Promotion of Higher Education in Research, Wanted: An New Deal for the Universities, Wiring up the Ivory Towers, Shaking the Ivory Towers, Shaking the Ivory Tower, Solving the Unemployment Problem by Looking Beyond the Job, Population Growth and Jobs, Beyond Economics, Violence in School: A World Wide Affair, Rural Poverty in India, Employment and Poverty Alleviation, Women and Poverty, Towards a New Policy on Poverty Reduction, Technological Entrepreneurship: The New Force for Economic Growth, Population Growth and Income, What was Wrong with Structural Adjustment, Can Economic Growth Reduce Poverty? New Findings on Inequality, Economic Growth and Poverty, Democracy and Poverty: Are they Interlinked?, Unemployment in the Poor and Rich Worlds, Corruption: Where to Draw the Line?, Social Summit, Trade and Labour Standards: Using the Wrong Instruments for the Right Cause, Employment and Promoting Ecology.

"The unprecedented economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, together with school closures and inadequate government assistance, is pushing children into exploitative and dangerous child labor. As their parents have lost jobs or income due to the pandemic and associated lockdowns, many children have entered the workforce to help their families survive. Many work long, grueling hours for little or no pay, often under hazardous conditions. Some report violence, harassment, and pay theft. [This report] is based on interviews conducted from January to March 2021 with 81 children, ages 8-17, in Ghana, Nepal, and Uganda.... The report examines the impact of the pandemic on children's rights, including their rights to education, to an adequate standard of living, and to protection from child labor, as well as government responses."--Page 4 of cover.

This book examines the effectiveness of trade and non-trade policies to combat the menace of child labour. Although it has decreased on the global scale in recent years, child labour still remains high, particularly in the developing countries. Keeping in mind the estimated extent of child labour in different regions around the globe, the book offers a detailed critical review of both theoretical and empirical literature on the topic as well as the policies to reduce the incidence of child labour. It also develops a general equilibrium model to demonstrate the possible effects of growth-promoting, non-trade policies, as opposed to direct trade policies, on child labour employment mitigation. The book argues that of the non-trade policies, the introduction of compulsory education appears to be an effective instrument for curtailing the child labour problem when families receive targeted subsidies for sending their children to school. It also shows that appropriately designed and targeted education subsidies can reduce the incidence of child labour and that social protection measures, such as subsidies on school enrolment, also tend to have a positive impact. The book not only opens up research topics for academicians but is also a valuable resource for policy makers.