Social Protection and the Reduction of Child Labour: Evaluating the Role of Welfare Policies in Developing Economies

Abstract

Child labour continues to strip millions of children of their childhood, their schooling, and, quite often, their long-term health. Despite decades of legislative reform and international commitment, the practice persists at a troubling scale, sustained in large part by household poverty, income shocks, and gaps in access to basic services. This paper examines whether, and under what conditions, social protection instruments  conditional and unconditional cash transfers, public employment guarantee schemes, school feeding programmes, and integrated child development services  reduce child labour in developing economies. Drawing on secondary data from the International Labour Organization (ILO), UNICEF, the World Bank, India's Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) and Census records, along with a review of programme evaluations from Latin America, South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, the study builds a comparative picture of what has worked, what has not, and why. Particular attention is paid to India, where the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), and the Mid-Day Meal Scheme are examined as case illustrations of welfare policy operating at scale in a federal, largely informal economy. The paper finds that social protection measures generally lower child labour incidence and raise school participation, but the magnitude of the effect depends heavily on programme design  particularly on whether conditionalities are enforced sensibly, whether transfer values keep pace with the opportunity cost of a child's labour, and whether complementary investments in school access and quality accompany the transfer. The paper closes with policy recommendations relevant to India and comparable middle- and low-income economies.