2.5 Child labour
From the statistics available at the ILO, it appears that child labour existed in virtually all Asian countries, except the most developed, even in the mid-1990s. It also appears, however, that the incidence of child labour is negatively related to the level of development. The incidence, for example, was lower in more developed East and Southeast Asian countries than in less developed South Asian countries. Even within each of the subregions, a similar relationship can be observed. Thus the incidence was lower in Malaysia than in Thailand and lower in India than in Nepal. The fact that the incidence of child labour remained significant in the transition economies also points to the importance of level of development as a determining factor.
A proper assessment of the long-term trends or of the trends since 1995 in the incidence of child labour is not attempted here; only some relevant observations are made. There are good reasons to believe that the long-term trend has been a declining one. As already observed, child labour tends to decline as economic growth occurs. For this reason alone, we should expect a declining trend in virtually all countries of the region. Moreover, it is also fairly well-known that poverty is the basic cause of child labour, and the incidence of poverty showed a declining trend in a large number of countries.
The same line of reasoning would also suggest, however, that the severe economic setbacks suffered by countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand is very likely to have reversed the long-term declining trend in the incidence of child labour in those countries. Confirmation of this tentative conclusion, of course, must await availability of further evidence.
