Development Economics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Development Economics - Essay Example (Das 2001, p. 25) It is a disturbing phenomenon, which, in the wake of globalization, has been escalated into a full blown international crisis. Various studies point to several factors responsible for child labour. These include lack of education, poverty, insufficient legislation and, if there are in place, their poor enforcement, family background, culture, exploitation and backward technologies, among others. The economic factor in the problem seems to take the most responsibility as statistics and literature on the subject have shown - child labour is prevalent in low-income countries. Hence, we will examine the issue in this perspective. Basically child labour constitutes a market with its own buyers and sellers coming together where such labour is exchanged for a price and, therefore, subject to the laws of supply and demand. According to Sayan Chakrabarty, the market includes those who provide child labour, such as households the children live in, and those who utilize it and that together both sides influence the incidence of child labour – its amount and productivity. (p. 17) To quote: The more pressure exerted on the supply side (i.e. the more households offer child labor), the less productive and remunerated this labor will tend to be. The more pressure is exerted in the demand side (i.e. the more uses for child labor are generated), the more productive and remunerated it will be. (p. 18) The Basu-Van model examines the relationship of poverty to child labour more specifically. In this model, it is argued that labour markets in low income economies are often characterized by multiple equilibria. This means that there are several possibilities in its incidence. One possibility is the prevalence of low (adult) wages, which are not enough to feed a family, and in such situations parents are compelled to send their children to work. (p. 412-27) The labour market equilibrium in this case involves participation of