Does social labelling encourage child schooling and discourage child labour in Nepal?

This paper explores the determinants of child labour vis-à-vis child schooling. It further examines the influence of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) which are engaged in social labelling, on the incidence of child labour and schooling trade-off. The empirical results show that the probability of child schooling increases as well as child labour decreases if a carpet firm has adopted a labelling scheme. It can also be shown that labelling NGOs have a significant positive influence on sending the ex-child labourers to school.

Research highlights▶ A child's labour market participation as a wage labourer puts the biggest obstacle to her/his school enrolment. ▶ Improving child's and household's welfare through the intervention of social labelling NGOs is an effective way of increasing child schooling. ▶ Labelling NGOs have a significant positive influence on sending the ex-child labourers to school. ▶ Improvement of the head of the household's educational status which significantly decreases the probability of a child's employment in the labour market.