The Indian government says that most of the Indian children who work do so "in their own rural family settings": "Children under fourteen constitute around 3.6% of the total labor force in India. Of these children, nine out of every ten work in their own rural family settings. Nearly 85% are engaged in traditional agricultural activities. Less than 9% work in manufacturing, services and repairs. Only about 0.8% work in factories" (Embassy of India, Washington, DC, "Child Labor and India," <http://www.indianembassy.org/policy/Child_Labor/childlabor.htm>). If that is true, the high rate of child labor in India is in part a reflection of the fact that the country is still largely rural and agricultural: the agricultural labor force was 75.1% of the labor force in 1961, and it was still still 57.8% in 2004, according to Earth Trends <http://earthtrends.wri.org/searchable_db/index.php?theme=8&variable_ID=205&action=select_countries>.
If the Indian government is correct that children under fourteen are only about 4.6% of the total Indian labor force and that most of them work for their own families in any case, though, the government should be able to afford taking them out of the labor force and educating them. If they do not, it is not due to prohibitive costs but due to the lack of a political will.
-- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>