Health consequences of child labour in Bangladesh

Abstract

This paper examines the effect of child labour on child health outcomes in Bangladesh. We use self-reported injury or illness due to work as a general measure of health status. Using the Bangladesh National Child Labour Survey data for 2002-2003, the results reveal that child labour is positively and significantly associated with the probability of being injured or becoming ill once the endogenous relationship between these factors is accounted for. These findings remain robust when we consider child labour hours and restrict our analysis to rural areas. Moreover, the intensity of injury or illness is significantly higher in construction and manufacturing sectors than in other sectors. Investigating the effect of child labour on subjective health across age groups, we find that health disadvantages for different age groups are not essentially parallel.