Thesis (Honors)--College of William and Mary, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 65-69). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Université de Paris. / Includes bibliographical references.

Includes bibliographical references. / This research examines the problem of child labour in Tanzania. It seeks to explore the magnitude, scope, causes and consequences of child labour, and the worst forms of child labour. Children are defined as persons less than 18 years and child labour refers to specific categories of children between 5 years and 18 years who are economically active. Children may be involved in paid as well as unpaid work within the formal and informal sectors, or in urban and rural areas. The Worst Forms of Child Labour include slavery, prostitution or pornography, illicit activities and hazardous work. As in many African societies, Tanzania's children are expected to carry out several tasks as they progress to adulthood under the principle of preparing them to be adults; this is generally referred to as 'socialization'. These tasks often place children in danger or expose them to unhealthy, dirty, strenuous, moral and exploitative conditions and constitute the type of child labour that the Tanzanian government is concerned about.

Thesis (doctoral)--Lunds universitet, 1990. / Extra t.p. with thesis statement inserted. Includes bibliographical references (p. 312-328).

Thesis (doctoral)--Lunds universitet, 1990. / Extra t.p. with thesis statement inserted. Includes bibliographical references (p. 312-328).

This dissertation focuses on the analysis of child labor in Mexico. It examines how families make decisions about child labor and schooling in a context of poverty and marginalization. I argue that the impact of poverty is mediated by cultural and social factors that determine activities done by children. The dissertation explores work opportunities available for children in rural and urban areas, and how these opportunities shape decisions. In some cases, urban life has become something desired; in others, there is a lack of opportunity to attend school. But in all cases, poverty is a constant. The cost of schooling can be very high; even when public education is available, many families are not able to afford it. However, poverty in itself does not necessarily leads to child labor; culture and prejudices about gender roles, mediate the perceived cost of schooling. This research demonstrates important differences between the activities that boys and girls perform, as a result of the ideas that their parents have of what a child “must do” because of being a boy or a girl. It also highlights the influence of culture and personal history in the decision making process. Finally, in addition to highlighting the importance of a human rights perspective and a gender-based approach, this research underlines the importance of including a definition of child labor that goes beyond economic activities, and considers unpaid domestic work and marginal activities as part of the definition, in order to be able to better understand parents’ decisions about child labor and schooling. / text

Child labor can affect human capital investment of children, as the daily available time is limited and an increase in time devoted to child labor reduces the available time for investment in human capital. The tradeoff between child labor and human capital investment is important, as the accumulation of human capital is a crucial factor in curtailing poverty and accelerating development plans undertaken by developing countries. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child emphasizes the importance of education and urges nations not to engage children in work that may interfere with their education. This research is comprised of four chapters that study the relationship between human capital investment and child labor. In the first chapter, I examine the available theoretical and empirical literature to determine the main factors that affect the tradeoff between child labor and human capital investment. The literature identifies income, access to credit, returns to education, and parental preferences as the main factors. In chapter 2, I investigate and analyze the Egyptian’s SYPE dataset that I use in chapter 3 and chapter 4. The SYPE is the most recent household survey dataset that provides data on education and child labor of Egyptian young people. In chapter 3 and chapter 4, I use the SYPE data for children aged 10 to 17 to study the relationship between child labor measured by household work and human capital investment measured by hours spent in schooling-related activities and by school attendance. Chapter 3 focuses on the gender difference in household work and human capital investment and introduces an identity framework (Akerlof and Kranton, 2010) to explain these differences. The chapter first establishes the puzzle that although females spend about twice more time in household work relative to males, there is no difference across gender in human capital investment. This is a puzzle because one would expect that the extra burden on females should impair their ability to invest in human capital and prevent them from ‘catching up’ ending up with the same amount of human capital investment as males. To resolve the puzzle, I introduce a model of identity where there are two social groups, males and females, and social norms determine time allocation for each social group. The model of identity should be understood as an additional framework, that supplements standard time allocation and human capital investment models (Becker, 1962). It captures differences across genders that are difficult to understand otherwise. I infer the norms from sociological research as well as from answers to questions in SYPE that shed light on gender expectations. The evidence on norms is surprisingly consistent with the time allocation patterns. Thus, a simple model of identity suggests that norms play a large role in explaining gender differences in time allocation and females’ ability to ‘catch-up’ in human capital investment despite a heavier household work burden. In the fourth chapter, I study the impact of household work on girls’ human capital investment using an instrumental variable approach and two-stage least squares (2SLS). Human capital investment is measured by school attendance and hours spent in school-related activities. Access to public services, and sisters-to-siblings ratio are used as instruments for household work. I do not find a significant effect of household work on girls’ school attendance. Measuring human capital investment by hours spent in school-related activities, I find that household work has a significant and sizable effect on human capital investment for girls. Increasing household work by one hour reduces hours spent investing in human capital by 2.096 hours. The effect of household work on hours of human capital investment occurs through the effect of household work on homework and private tutoring time, as the effect of household work on time in school is insignificant. The effect of household work on homework time is higher than its effect on private tutoring time (0.612 and 0.572 respectively). / Graduate

What explains the variation of child labor rates across Indian states? This dissertation explores why certain states in India, which are not necessarily the wealthiest, have been able to reduce child labor significantly in the past few decades, while child labor continues to increase at alarming rates in other states. Previous economic and cultural explanations, which focus on household-level poverty or the hierarchical social stratification of Indian society fail to adequately explain variation in child labor rates across Indian states. This research project explores how systematic regional differences in bureaucratic performance and patterns of civic engagement have influenced child labor rates in Indian states. The dissertation articulates and tests several hypotheses about the efficacy of bureaucracy and civil society activity in implementing child labor and elementary education laws. This study employs a multi-level research design including a range of statistical and qualitative techniques of analysis to get at the social and institutional variables that influence parents’ decision to send a child to work. It utilizes cross-state survey dataset for 28 Indian states for the year 2005 to run statistical analyses which confirm the theoretical hypotheses. Further, two case studies based on six months of fieldwork in the two Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan provide further understanding of the theoretical mechanisms. This study finds that educational deprivation plays a key role in determining levels of child labor- even controlling for income, states that have focused on universal elementary education have been more successful at reducing child labor than states that have not prioritized elementary education.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2003. / Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains xxi, 308 p. : ill. (some col.). Advisor: J.R. Wilkins III, School of Public Health. Includes bibliographical references (p. 210-220).

Author's doctoral dissertation, Columbia University, 1922, but not published as a thesis. / At head of title: State of New York Military Training Commission, Bureau of Vocational Training.