Socioeconomic Determinants of Child Labor in Urban and Rural Areas of Pakistan

Abstract

Child labor is a long-term problem in Pakistan that is influenced by complicated socioeconomic, cultural, and institutional variables. Although laws have been set up to eradicate child labor, millions of children keep working at the expense of their education, health and general well-being. The paper will discuss socioeconomic factors that affect child labor in urban and rural Pakistan by focusing on household income, parental education, family structure and access to social services. Convenient sampling was used to sample households in the chosen urban and rural districts to get knowledge about the number and motivation of child labour. These results demonstrate that low family income, illiteracy, family size, and inaccessibility to opportunities to acquire education are a high-risk factor that predisposes children to labor. Besides, the rural regions show the greatest incidences because of low access to education and chronic poverty. To deal with the issue of child labor, there is a need to combine efforts in form of poverty reduction, education, and community-based approach that would uphold the rights of children to acquire education and healthy development.