The essay is to provides a detailed overview of the state of the recent empirical literature on why and how children work as well as the consequences of that work. It provides a descriptive overview of how children spend their time in low income coutries, most common type of work, influence of...

Child labor exists because it is the best response people can find in intolerable circumstances. Poverty and child labor are mutually reinforcing: because their parents are poor, children must work and not attend school, and then grow up poor. Child labor has two important special features....