Child Labor and Schooling in India: Evidence from MICS 2000

Jayachandran Vasudevan, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)
Chandra Sekhar, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)

The recently conducted Multiple Indicator Survey (MICS-2000) provides us with ample opportunity to analyze the linkage between child labor and schooling in India. The survey was conducted during the year 2000, collected information from about 120,000 households covering all the States and Union Territories. For children aged 5-14 years, the activity, type of activity, and duration of work were collected. In this study child labor is defined as "those who work for someone else (for pay or without pay) or engage in household chores for more than four hours a day or doing other family work." As per the above definition, 14 percent children are engaged in child labor, 10 percent among those attend school and 30 percent among those not attend school. Inter-state variations are substantial. Further multivariate analysis is carried out to understand the relationship between child labor and schooling after controlling different socio-cultural variables.