Child Labor in Iranian Households

Child labor is a sign of “current household’s poverty”, which in turn leads to “future poverty” and causes vicious circle of poverty in a family. This research aims to assess the intra-household factors that affecting the work and school attendance of children, by using Bivariate-probit models as a joint decision making of parents in Iran. We use households’ income and expenditure survey 2009 both for urban and rural areas. Our findings reveal that family background of children is among the main causes of child work decision in urban and rural families. More specifically, parental age, schooling, wage and non-labor earning are the main determinants of child’s time allocation. Furthermore, child gender, her age and region of residence are observed as significant factors which cause being a child labor.