Child Labour in India

Childhood is a period of school-learning, of recreation, of physical, mental and social development, and not primarily of income bearing work. The spread of mass education and elimination of child labor are the two interrelated features of development of children. The prevalence of child labor can be into two broad groups: demand-side and supply-side factors. On the demand side, the segmented labor market and demand for low-wage labor or specialized labor is used to explain the presence of child workers. On the supply side, most importantly, poverty is a major contributor to child labour. According to NSS data in 2011-12, 78% of India's child labour is found in rural area and 22% in the urban area. Literature on this subject focuses on the child labour in factories and cottage industries across urban India. Little has been documented on the wide prevalence of child labour across rural India. The key difference in this practice between rural and urban areas is that it is much more difficult to measure child labour in rural areas, especially because of the widespread prevalence of "invisible" forms of child labour: activities assisting parents, relatives, etc. in household chores and/or unpaid labour. These activities contribute to the overall welfare or output of the household, but are not captured in national surveys. Further, very little has been documented on the economic characteristics of the household to which these children belong to. Another important aspect that has been neglected is the occurrence of child labour among the social groups like scheduled caste, scheduled tribes and other backward caste groups where the incidence is relatively high in India. In this context it is important to understand the incidence of child labour in India the social and economic context.

Definition of child labour has been subjected to intense debate in the recent years and it has been approached in many ways. The International Labour Organization, a key player on this issue, has a broad definition and it defines 'child labour' as "any work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and what is harmful to their physical and mental development. Work is described as that which is mentally, physically, socially and morally dangerous to children and work that interferes with the children schooling by depriving them the opportunity to attend school, by obliging them to leave school prematurely or that demands them to combine school attendance with heavy work."89 There are others who believe that "the concept of child labour should be restricted to the spheres of production and services that interfere with the normative development of children and a single estimate of child labour which includes children who are engaged in hazardous work as well as children who do non-hazardous work. Children who work full time and part time, children who work for wages and who work as unpaid family workers is detrimental for policy purposes".90 Broadly, child labour has been understood by the following characteristics: 1. Those children who work in exploitative and hazardous conditions. 2. Any child engaged in an economically gainful employment or activity.

89 www.ilo.org/ipec/facts/lang 90 Lieten K 2001: "Child Labour: questions on magnitude", in: Lieten K & White (Eds), Child Labour: Policy Options, Amsterdam, Aksant Publication, p53.

4. Any child not enrolled in any school and not engaged in the workforce/gainful activity (the "nowhere children") so this implies that anyone not in school must be working somewhere. Overtime, the estimate of child labour has expanded from incorporating the features of first definition to the second, and recently many authors and activists have been advocating the third and the fourth characteristics too. While the first characteristics is restricted to the more extreme forms of child labour but this definition ignores an important segment of children working elsewhere. The third definition is too broad that parents not convinced or aware of the benefits of schooling their children (male or female) cannot automatically be inferred to be exploiting child labour by engaging their children in household work. At the same time, it is unquestionably the work that adds to the economic management of the household and interferes with the schooling of the child. In this study, only one segment is considered separately - the child labour segment, which includes all children employed in economically gainful employment. Globally the age group considered for child labour is 5-17 years. In the present analysis, all the full time and part time working children in India belong to 5-14 age groups are included. The population between 0-4 years age group has not been included in total child population as it is not relevant for the definition of child labour as the ratio being measured is based on the universe of children who fall within the definition of child labourers, and this age group is excluded from this segment. Further. Hence, the analysis is focused on the incidence of child labourers in the 5-14 age group.

Literature on child labour is marked by a substantial debate on what constitutes child labour, the various definitions/concepts of child work, and, resultant estimates. A review of current literature on 'child labour' reveals that on the one hand, there is an official definition of 'child labour' which is conventional and restrictive in nature and on the other hand there is definition which is broader one. The official definition is obtained from Population Census and National Sample Survey, which are the two main government sources of information on child labour. The definition of a worker, adopted by these two government sources refers to those children who are employed either as paid workers or engaged in production related activities in which at least a portion of the produce is marketed. Those children who work as unpaid workers in domestic duties are not included in this definition. The proponents of the official definition argue that a child is considered working if the work he/she is engaged in interferes with their physical development, with their possibility to go to school and classified as child labour in the strict sense of the term (Lieten: 2001). The broader definition on child labour, on the other hand, includes all those children 'who are not accounted for in the official statistics and they neither are in school nor are listed as working. Such children are termed as 'nowhere children' (Chaudhri, 1996) or 'invisible children (Jayraj and Subramanian, 2002). Many supporters of this definition believe that a child who does not go to school can be assumed to be a working child especially in the rural areas (Sinha, 1996, Ramchandran, 2002). Such work may not qualify for official classification as 'child labour' but it is certainly not ‗devoid of work‘.91 The estimates for 'child labour' including these children would be larger than those based on the official definition that does not take into account the unpaid work. Kannan (2002) argues that discussion on child labour should be focused on children out-of-school, who is working in one way or the other to help themselves and/or their families. It is in this sense that Kannan uses the term 'child deprivation' which is a summation of estimates on child labour and the nowhere children. These are some broad concepts used to analyze and estimate working children in India. The magnitude of children working would differ according to the definition. The child work participation rate (WPR) was about 8% - 9% for males and 4% - 5% for females (Srikantan: 1991, Jayraj: 1995; Duriasamy: 1997, Chaudhri: 1997, Deshpande: 2002). The child work participation rate for children working as marginal workers (i.e. children working for less than 6 months in a year) was 7% for males and 2.1% for females (Deshpande: 2002). Another important source of information on working children is National Sample Survey (NSS), which gives data on employment and unemployment details every five years. NSS estimates give a higher incidence of child labour than the population Census. According to NSS, in India, an estimated number of working children was 21.45 million in 1983, as against just 13.7 million enumerated by the Census in 1981 (Deshpande: 2002). In1991, Population Census estimated that 11.4 million children were working in the rural areas and their work participation rate was 5.3% (Chaudhri: 1997, Deshpande: 2002, Daly et al: 2002). While the NSS estimates show that in 1993-94 12.4 million children were working and their WPR was 7.2% (Deshpande: 2002).

91 This type of work combines household work that helps to manage the home and assist indirectly in many ways to contribute to livelihood. Collection of water, fuel, maintenance of the house and taking care of younger siblings all constitute work that is unpaid but indirectly assist the family members in generating income. Hence in the context of rural India, therefore, a non-working, non-school going child does not exist (Ramchandran, 2001; Kannan, 2001).

children neither working nor schooling but in realty these unaccounted children who do not go to school are the working children. (Sinha: 1996, Chaudhri: 1997). The level of child work is not uniformly distributed across the states. The incidence of child labour is highly concentrated in some of the states like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Orissa, Bihar and West Bengal most of which are less developed states. (Jayraj: 1995, Chaudhri: 1997, Daly et al: 2002, Dev and Mahendra: 2002). There are only few Studies available on incidence of child labour based on secondary sources in India at state level. In rural Rajasthan according to 1991 Census 7.8% children were engaged in 'work that was higher than the national average. The proportion of working plus 'nowhere' children in rural Rajasthan was 50%, which was much higher than the national average of 36% (Bhattacharya, Mathur and Dash: 2002). In Tamil Nadu under the 'restrictive' definition according to NSS data (1987 -88) eleven out of every one hundred children were in workforce. According to census of India ―Child labour is the practice of having children (under 5-14 age group) employed in economic activity, on part or full-time basis‖. The proportion of working children to total child population was 3.4% for boys and 3.0% for girls in 1981. By 1991, incidence of child labour declined to 0.5% for boys and 0.4% for girls that is the lowest in the country (Kannan: 2002). Micro studies support the estimates on the incidence of child labour presented by the government sources. A study on the rural areas of Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh indicates that full-time child work is a significant but limited phenomenon in the rural north India where work is the primary activity of 9.4% of girls and 4.2% of boy's aged 5 to 14 (Leclrcq: 2002). This estimate is corroborated by the findings of another study in Uttar Pradesh where the author finds 5% of the children working (Lieten: 2000). Similarly, Nangia and Khan (2002) report that work participation rates for children were 15% for Andhra Pradesh, 8% for Madhya Pradesh and 3% for Orissa. An overwhelming majority of working children fall in the age group 10-14 years. Raj and Satpathy (2002) in their study to assess food insecurity and its impact on child labour in backward regions of rural Orissa employed the official definition of child labour to measure its magnitude. They define child labour as children who work either full-time or part-time. They found that among the 282 households in the sample, there were 214 child labourers, in the school going age-group (5-14 years), thereby implying 1.32 child labourers per household. They point out that given an average family size of six persons, including the parents and four children it may be safely assumed labour. The magnitude of child labour gets compounded when the unpaid work is included with the paid work done by children. A primary study in rural Bihar by Antony (2002) indicates that approximately 25% of all working children belong to agriculture and allied sector. While nearly 50% of all working children are engaged in household work. Further, 40% of children in the study area reported neither working nor going to school. Ramchandaran and Karan (2002) in their study on child deprivation in the tribal region of Jharkhand reported that 35% of the children in the age group 10-14 are full time workers. Even in the age group 5-9 years, 6% are full-time workers. Taking main and subsidiary occupations together the proportion rises to 58% for the age-group 10-14 and 11% for the age group 5-9. Additionally, 26.5% of the children in the age group 5-14 neither are in school nor at work. Vlasoff (1980), in his primary study of 371 households in rural Maharashtra measured the work participation rates of children by including paid work as well as unpaid work. The definition employed to measure the magnitude of working children generally determines the magnitude of a girl child worker. Girls are mainly engaged in unpaid household chores that in the official definition are not counted as 'work'. This is borne out from the fact that from Population Census and NSS, the estimates on girl child labour is lower than the boys (Jayraj: 1995, Srikantan: 1991, Deshpande: 2002, Kannan: 2002). But when we include the 'nowhere children', the incidence of child labour/or child deprivation increases significantly for girls and their incidence becomes higher than the boys. Hence, the incidence of children who are neither in school nor in the work force is higher for girls than for boys. Hence, there is a possibility that the conventional definition of a child labour results in gross underestimation of magnitude of child labour especially for girl child. In 1991, at an all India level about 51% of nowhere children were girls as against 37.7% of boys (Kannan: 2002). The level of girl 'nowhere' child is not uniformly distributed across the states. Highest proportion of girl children who are not found in school and not in the work force is found in Bihar (71 percent). Jayraj and Subramanian (2002) indicate that in Tamil Nadu, the number of working girl children was higher than the boys when the number of children who were not going to school nor were listed as workers were estimated. Kannan (2002) in his study indicates that deprived children are more in proportion for girls (54.1 %) than for boys (43%). Bhattacharya, Mathur and Dash (2002) similarly found a higher proportion of female 'nowhere' children in rural Rajasthan. The percentage of girl children in the age-group 5-14 years was 60% in the nineties. 7.88 per cent in the State during 1981-91. Micro-studies strengthen the contention that a higher percentage of girls work than boys that is not adequately captured in the official definition. Vlasoff (1980) in his primary study in rural Maharashtra indicated that the length of economic participation of rural girls increased earlier than the boys. That is, girls under 12 years, on an average in a year worked more than the boys.92 Similarly a village level study by Skoufias (1994) indicates that in rural Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, irrespective of age there were persistent differences in the time use between boys and girls. Girls were more likely to participate in labour market and home activities, whereas boys were more likely to be in school. Similarly, Leclrcq (2002), finds that in rural North India work is the primary activity for girls: (9.4%) and boys (4.2%) aged 5 to 14. In Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, a higher proportion of girls were involved work than the boys. Antony (2002), in his primary study on six districts of Bihar, found out that 70% of all working children are engaged in household work and girls mostly do this work. By 1993 94, girls involvement in workforce was higher in Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu and lowest in Assam, Kerala and Punjab. Ram chandaran and Karan (2002) in their study in tribal region of Jharkhand report that cutting across caste and class difference the girl child in rural areas is discriminated against in terms of work. In the age group 5-9 years, 3% of the boys work, while the corresponding figure for girls is 8.5 %. In the age group, 10-14 years, 21.5% of boys are engaged work as against 49% of girls in the same age group. In the SC and ST groups, proportion of girl child worker is three to six-fold higher than that of male child ' worker. Similarly Nangia and Khan (2002) report in their study based on NFHS data, that in districts of Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, work participation rates for female are higher than for male children. From the above review on the magnitude of child labour it is apparent that there are divergent viewpoints on the definition of child labour. Broadly, the perspectives through which one can measure the number of working children are: a. The official definition:93 Children who work only in economically productive activity as part time or full time basis are counted as child labour. b. The Broader Definition: Census estimate is short of what would be a minimal estimate according to the other perspective. There are a large proportion of children (especially girls) who are not accounted for in labour statistics

92 Girls work included household chores, farm work etc. which are not generally considered gainful activities (Vlasoff,1980) 93 Definition as per Census of India.

in the economic management of the household. The government statistics do not account for these children. The broader definition considers all these as 'deprived' and includes them in the realm of child labour.

It is evident from the literature available on working children that: a) Divergent views prevail in defining a 'working child'. The resultant estimates on the magnitude of child labour differ with the definition of child 'work' employed. Official definition measures a child work only in economic activity which is enumerated and it under-estimates the magnitude of child labour. Many researchers define child labour as all those children who are working not only for wages but also in the household which ' indirectly contribute to its economy. These children, in official statistics, are neither found in the labour pool nor in the school. The estimated magnitude for working children according to this definition increases manifold. b) The differences that prevail at the definitional level also prevails at the type of work these children engage in. Within the government sources according to population census and national sample survey the predominant form of activity that children are engaged is wage labour. On the other hand, most of the micro level studies (barring a few) indicate that children working for wages in rural parts of India are an extremely limited phenomenon. Most of the children work in household activities which are productive in nature and it contributes indirectly to the economy of the household. Gender differentiation comes into play with boys contributing to agriculturally productive work while girls to domestic duties. Some studies at micro level indicate that girls work twice as much as boys. Hence, gender bias in participation in labour force is towards girls.

Based on the issues discussed and review of literature, the present study focuses on the following objectives. The specific objectives of the study are as follows: • To estimate the incidence of child labour among the social groups (schedule tribes, other backward caste, and others), gender

Based on reviewing the literature research questions arises are: o How is the pattern of incidence of child labourers in India?

Relatively little has been documented with a quantitative assessment of child labour, where the activity type and compensation is the outcome of a complex interplay between various social and economic factors. To simplify, most of the existing studies on child labour have firstly tended to pool the sex-wise data for all the social groups of the society. This aggregation prevented the identification of the core-social groups that the child labour belongs to. In the present study, child labour has been examined at the state level by gender, sector, and social groups. The nature and type of work that boys and girls undertake in different economic activities has been studied in detail. In this study an attempt has been made to systematically estimate the incidence of child labour at the state level. Finally, building on previous studies on determinants of child labour in India, we have attempted to identify the causes by capturing the direct and the indirect impact of relevant economic factors on the incidence of child labour. This study has attempted to examine child labour at state level, this study focused only on 15 major states. They are Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal.

To generate estimates of child labour, one of the most comprehensive and widely recognised sources of data is the one collected by the National Sample Survey Organisation. The NSSO was set up in the year 1950 and since then has been collecting data at both state and national levels. Since in starting, it has conducted annual surveys using a small sample till about 1974. However, since 1972-73 NSSO started conducting large sample based Quinquennial surveys on employment and unemployment situation in India every five years. Since, then these five yearly surveys have been conducted in 1977-78 (32nd round), 1983 (38th round), 1987-88 (43th round), 1993-94 (50th round) and 1999-2000 (55th round), 2004-05 (61st round), and 2011-12 (68th round). For the present study, the employment and unemployment survey conducted in 1993-94, 1999-2000, 2004-05, and 2011-12 has been used. Data in the survey is furnished at the household as well as at the individual level. Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan, Orissa, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal. This study does not included Himachal Pradesh and Kerala due to insufficient number of observations.

Kannan (2002), believes that the 'discussion on child labour should be focused on out-of school, children who are working in one form or another to help themselves and/or their families (Kannan 2002, p. 395). He defines all out of school children as 'deprived children'. Lieten (2002) on the other hand argues that by including all out of school children with child labour is like 'mixing of apples, oranges and bananas'. 'The fruit bowl, thus, constructed is indeed attractive in the sense that it forcefully draws the public attention to the intense social injustice that still affects the majority of children in India. It also puts pressure to search for causal factors and policy solutions (Lieten 2003, p.453).

NSSO defines the Usual Principal and Subsidiary Status (UPSS) as that covers those who are employed on more or less regular basis in a year and those- who are non-workers by UPS94 but have been employed in some subsidiary economic activities. The incidence of child labour under 5-14 age group at the aggregate as well across social categories has examined in this section. At the all India level, incidence of child labourers reported 6.5% in 1993-94, 4.4% in 1999-00, 3.4% in 2004-05, and 1.5% in 2011-12 (Table 2). This table also showed incidence of child labourers across major state in India during 1993-94 to 2011-12. Andhra Pradesh showed highest incidences of child labour during 1993-94 to 1999-00 and, on the other

94 a person to be 'working' if he/she has been engaged relatively for a longer time during the reference period of 365 days in any one or

94 to 2011-12 except in the year 2004-05. Tamil Nadu captured lowest incidences of child labour (1.5%) during 2004-05.

Source: Calculated by unit level NSS data - employment and unemployment survey, 1993-94 to 2011-12

Overall analysis of Table 3.2 reported that incidences of child labourers have declined at national as well as at state level during 1993-94 to 2011-12. This drastic changed in the incidence of child labourers might be due to increase in enrolment of children in schooling that might be possible by successful implementation of ―The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009‖95- amended in 2012, and ―Child labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986‖96 - amended in 2012, this act prohibits children under 14 age group from working in any occupation except their family business.

95 http://mhrd.gov.in/rte Under this act, every child has a right to full time elementary education of satisfactory and equitable quality in a formal school which satisfies certain essential norms and standards. 96 http://www.childlineindia.org.in/child-labour-prohibition-and-regulation-act-1986.htm

Source: Calculated by unit level NSS data - employment and unemployment survey- 1993-94 to 2011-12

Table 3 showing distribution of child labourers in India during 1993-94 to 2011-12, where Andhra Pradesh registered highest proportion of child labour to total child labour population in India during 1993-94 to 1999-00 but the situation has changed during 2004-05 to 2011-12, this might be due to poverty and lack of education in Andhra Pradesh. And, during 2004-05 to 2011-12, Uttar Pradesh registered highest proportion of child labour in India. During 1993-94 and 2011-12 Haryana reported lowest proportion of child labour to total child labour population in India while during 1999-00 to 2004-05 Jammu and Kashmir accounted lowest proportion of child labourer in India. The pattern of distribution of child labour‘s proportion in India is shown in figure I. In this figure, during 1993-94 to 1999-00, the incidence of child labour was highest in Andhra Pradesh among the states. And, during 2004-05 to 2011-12, Uttar Pradesh registered highest proportion of child labour among the states but the proportion of Uttar Pradesh in child labour during 2004-05 to 2011-12 was higher as compare to Andhra Pradesh during 1993-94 to 1999-00.

workforce were higher than female participation rate during 1993-94 to 2011-12. And, the proportion of male child labourers was slightly declined during 1993-94 to 2004-05 with (54.1 to 53%) while it increased to 58.3% in 2011-12 (Table 4).

Source: Calculated by unit level NSS data - employment and unemployment survey, 1993-94 to 2011-12.

At state level, Punjab consisted of the highest proportion of male child labour (76%) in 1993-94, Haryana registered 84% in 1999-00 and 100% in 2011-12, and Assam accounted 75.6% in 2004-05 while Rajasthan consisted of the highest proportion of female child labour (63.1%) during 1993-94 to 1999-00, Jammu and Kashmir showed (70.2%) in 2004-05, and Andhra Pradesh accounted 79.8% in 2011-12. Table 3.4 showed that male child labourers accounted higher participation in the work force than female labourers. This finding is true at all India level while variation can be found across states.

Incidence of child labor was highly varied at national as well as state level across different period of time. Due to inconsistency in estimation of social Group-wise proportion of child labourers (under 5-14 age group), 1993-94 round has not been included in this section. At the national level, during 1999-00, the highest incidences of child labour was found among SCs (41%) followed by OBCs (37%) and ‗others‘ (23%). During 2004-05, OBCs recorded highest incidence of child labourers with (42%) share followed by SCs (38%) and ‗others‘ (20%). Also in 2011-12, the same pattern as in 2004-05 could be observed. During 2011-12, the highest incidences were found in OBCs with (41%) followed by SCs (36%) and ‗others‘ (23%) (Table 5). At state level, during 1999-00, highest incidence of child labour by SC social group was found in Orissa with 74%, highest incidence of child labour by OBC 2004-05, highest incidence of child labour by SC social group found in Orissa with 74.4%, OBC social group in Tamil Nadu with 70.6%, and Others‘ social group in West Bengal with 69.2%. In 2011-12, highest incidence of child labour by SC social group was found in Punjab with 70%, OBC social group in Tamil Nadu with 99%, and ‗Others‘ social group in West Bengal with 85%. The state of Tamil Nadu observed the highest percentage of OBC child labour to total child labour population from 1999-00 to 2011-12. And, its share slightly declined from 73.5% in 1999-00 to 70.6% in 2004-05 and increased gradually in 2011-12 to 99%. While Orissa consisted the highest percentage of SC child labour to total child labour population in Orissa from 1999-00 to 2004-05 and their proportion had increased from 73.6 to 74.4% during same time period. West Bengal consisted of the highest percentage of ‗Others‘ child labour to total child labour population in West Bengal from 2004-05 to 2011-12 and their proportion was increased from 69% to 85% during same time period.

Source: Calculated by unit level NSS data - employment and unemployment survey, 1993-94 to 2011-12

Table 5 concluded that during 1999-00, highest incidence of child labour was observed in SCs followed by OBCs and ‗Others‘ social group while during 2004-05 to 2011-12, OBCs recorded slightly higher incidence of child labour followed by SCs and ‗Others‘ social group. This is true only at national level while variation can be found at the state level.

Table 6 provides incidences of child labourers in rural and urban areas of India. At all India level, rural areas accounted highest incidence of child labourers (88.5%) than urban areas in 1993-94 and this pattern remained same during 1999-00 to 2011-12. But, proportion of child labourers in rural India

Source: Calculated by unit level NSS data - employment and unemployment survey, 1993-94 to 2011-12

This table showed that proportion of child labourers in urban India was very much lower than rural India but the proportion of child labourers in urban India had increased during 1993-94 to 2011-12. Across state, in rural India, Jammu and Kashmir registered highest incidence of child labourers (95.6%) in 1993-94, Orissa at 96.3% in 1999-00 and 95.7% in 2004-05, and Bihar at 92.7% in 2011-12 while Haryana accounted highest incidence of child labourers (22.5%) in urban India in 1993-94, Punjab at 27% in 1999-00, Tamil Nadu at 35% in 2004-05, and West Bengal at 50% in 2011-12. Table 6 concluded that rural India recorded higher proportion of child labour. Main reasons behind it could be poverty, lack of education and poor developmental process in the rural areas of India. Overall analysis recorded the following: • Incidence of child labourers has reduced from 6.5% to 1.5% during 1993-94 to 2011-12. • Andhra Pradesh registered the highest distribution of child labourers during 1993-94 to 1999-00 while Uttar Pradesh captured the highest distribution of child labourers during 2004-05 to 2011-12. • Male child labourers occupied highest proportion of child labour in India than female. This finding is true only at national level while variation can be found at the state level. • Highest incidence of child labour was observed in SCs followed by OBCs and ‗Others‘ social group during 1999-00 while during 2004-05 to 2011-12, OBCs recorded slightly higher incidence of child labour followed by SCs and ‗Others‘ social group. • Rural areas of India recorded higher proportion of child labour but their proportion of child labour in rural India has declined during 1993-94 to 2011-12. • Proportion of child labour in urban India was very much lower than the share in rural India but the proportion has increased from 1993-94 to 2011-12 in Urban India.

Incidences of child labour had reduced from 6.5% to 1.5% during 1993-94 to 2011-12. Among gender, male child labourers occupied highest incidence of child labour in India than female and this was true only at national level while variation can be found at the state level. Among sectors, rural areas of India recorded higher proportion of child labour but their proportion of child labour in rural India has declined during 1993-94 to 2011-12. This was true at all India level as well as state level. And, Proportion of child labourers in urban India was very much lower than the proportion in rural India but the proportion of child labourers increased during 1993-94 to 2011-12 in urban India. Among social groups, the incidence of child labour was the highest among schedule castes as compared to the OBC and the 'others' categories in 1999-00 but during 2004-05 to 2011-12 the incidence of child labour was slightly highest among the OBC as compared to schedule castes followed by the 'others' category of social group. This was true at national level and variation can be found at the state level.

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Assistant Professor, Motilal Nehru College, Delhi University