Child labour and schooling decision of the marginal farmer households: An empirical evidence from the East Medinipur district of West Bengal, India

TL;DR

This study examines how household income, credit access, and parental factors influence child labour and schooling decisions among marginal farmer households in East Medinipur, West Bengal, using empirical analysis.

Contribution

It provides new empirical evidence on the determinants of child labour and schooling decisions in marginal farming households in India.

Findings

Higher household earnings reduce child labour incidence.

Mother's credit access from Self-help groups decreases child labour.

Parental education and smaller landholdings positively influence child schooling.

Abstract

Based on the field investigation of West Bengal, this paper investigates whether the school-aged children of the marginal farmer households are full-time paid labourers or unpaid domestic labourers along with schooling or regular students. Probit Regression analysis is applied here to assess the influencing factors for reducing the size of the child labour force in practice. The result shows that the higher is the earning of the adult members of the households, the lower is the incidence of child labour. Moreover, the credit accessibility of the mother from the Self-help group and more person-days of the father in work in a reference year are also responsible for reducing the possibility of a child turning into labour. The study further suggests that the younger age of the father, education of fathers, and low operational landholdings are positive and significant determinants to decide on a child education by restricting their excessive domestic work burden.