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As the above discussion shows, various non-poverty factors like parental attitude towards child labor, parental education, cost of education, poverty associated with castes, etc., are all significantly shaped by household income (i.e., poverty).
Thus, it points to the fact that the poverty is the major reason behind child labor in developing countries, though non-poverty factors have their own influence.

Policy Measures

The above conclusions can be used to derive a number of policy suggestions, which can be broadly categorized in following four areas, as follows: -

Education

Many researchers have shown that lack of parental education / absence of neighborhood schools and high costs of education dissuade parents from sending their children to schools (and thus, to work). Thus, policy makers can take following steps to provide better educational opportunities to children: -

1) NGOs can play an active role in solving the problem of bondage and of child labor. Firstly, they can supply non-formal education to parents, which consists of teaching basic mathematical skills (to protect them from unfair exploitation by employers / brokers / money lenders), and to make them aware of the future benefits of education. Also, NGOs with the participation of government can supply vocational training to children in order to permit them in acquiring specific technical skills. This would help them in increasing their future earning potential (with a relatively smaller gestation period which is not the case with current education system), and hence, would discourage parents from forcing their children into working.

2) Also, special incentives for students from marginalized sections (including SC/ST children) of the society should be given as they are observed to be involved in large amount of non-school activities. Though these steps might not have immediate effects on child labor, they do have significant future implications.

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Dr. Shreyas Goswami and Vineet Jain are the First Year MBA (BM) Students at XLRI, Jamshedpur. While Shreyas is a Doctor by profession, Vineet is a Civil Engineer from Delhi College of Engineering, Delhi University.