| Gaia: | The paper aims to improve our understanding about the prevalence and determinants of child
labor in rural Bangladesh. Data for this study were obtained from 1995 sample survey of 3,809
eligible children aged 5 to 14 years in 150 villages. Findings reveal that about 42.5% of the
children were in the labor force Nearly half of the employed children were engaged in livestock
raising, 22,2% in household activities, 2, 7% in agricultural products. Children in labor were
both abused and exploited as about 31.4% of working children reported that they were verbally
assaulted, 4.2~·~ beaten_ 8.4% mentally tortured and 8.4% forced to work for long hours. School
enrollment appears to be negatively associated with child labor. The probability of child to be a
labor increases if his/her father is illiterate, land poor, and himself is a labor. The multivariate
analysis reveals that children who have never been to or dropped out from school are 2.84 times
more likely to enter into the labor force (p <. 00 l) when age of children is controlled. \\'hen other
factors such as parental years of schooling, household ownership of land, occupation of father
are systematically added to the regression equation, the negative influence of school enrollment
on child labor remains statistically significant (p<.OOl ). The paper concludes that expanding
public school network in the rural areas and making them attractive to children will bring a
significant reduction of child labor.
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