Child work poverty and underdevelopment

Most children work, in one sense or another. The ILO has esti mated that in 1976 there were some 56 million children in employment in the world, a figure that may well be on the low side. But what is "child work"? Traditionally, child work is looked upon as an evil to be eliminated, and there exist many sometimes horrifying accounts of the exploitation of children; yet in many societies, particularly in low-income rural areas in developing countries, child work is part of the process of socialisation and often also provides an important supplement to the incomes of poor families.

This study, which has been prepared with the financial sup port of the United Nations Fund for Population Activities, looks into the causes, functions and consequences of child work, rather than describing its manifestations or investigating the legislative and standard-setting aspects of the problem, which have been covered in other ILO publications. Its nine chapters, by different authors, focus on the determinants and conse quences of child work and on conceptual ambiguities, and suggest research techniques for empirical analysis. It is hoped that the various questions raised and suggestions made will help to encourage others to give far more attention to the eco nomic activities of children than has been the case hitherto in debates and policy prescriptions on "development".