Research Changes Ideas About Children and Work - New York Times

"they rarely picture girls fetching water or boys tending livestock..."
Every time I visit a third world country, it never ceases to amaze me how many people (often kids) I see walking along the freeway--often for miles, carrying water, vegetables, tending livestock etc...as I zoom along in my chauffered car...and to think how it easy it could have been for me to be "in their shoes..."
Research Changes Ideas About Children and Work - New York Times: "WHEN Americans think about child labor in poor countries, they rarely picture girls fetching water or boys tending livestock. Yet most of the 211 million children, ages 5 to 14, who work worldwide are not in factories. They are working in agriculture - from 92 percent in Vietnam to 63 percent in Guatemala - and most are not paid directly."
"Contrary to popular perception in high-income countries, most working children are employed by their parents rather than in manufacturing establishments or other forms of wage employment," two Dartmouth economists, Eric V. Edmonds and Nina Pavcnik, wrote in "Child Labor in the Global Economy," published in the Winter 2005 Journal of Economic Perspectives....

Recent research, however, casts doubt on the cultural explanation. "In every context that I've looked at things, child labor seems to be almost entirely about poverty. I wouldn't say it's only about poverty, but it's got a lot to do with poverty," Professor Edmonds said.

As families' incomes increase, children tend to stop working and, where schools are available, they go to school. If family incomes drop, children are more likely to return to work...

"Child labor does not appear to vary with per capita expenditure until households can meet their food needs, and it then declines dramatically," Professor Edmonds wrote. (His articles may be downloaded at www.dartmouth.edu/~eedmonds.)