The Role of Social Protection in The Elimination of Child Labour

X
The
role of social protection in
the elimination of child labour
Evidence review and policy implications
X The
role of social protection in
the elimination of child labour
Evidence review and policy implications
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3
Foreword
Child labour is a violation of every child’s right to a childhood – and a breach of every government’s most
fundamental duty to protect its children.
For nearly two decades, beginning in 2000, the world was making steady progress in reducing child labour.
But over the last few years, conflicts, crises, and since 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic have plunged more
families into poverty – and forced millions more children into labour.
Today, 160 million children still engaged in child labour – some as young as 5. That’s almost one in ten
children, worldwide. Nearly half of these children are engaged in hazardous work likely to cause physical
and emotional harm.
This is both morally unconscionable – and strategically short-sighted. Children who stay in school and out
of work have a better chance to fulfil their own potential, in turn helping break intergenerational cycles
of poverty and supporting sustainable economic growth.
This new report provides a rigorous review of what the latest research says about the power of social
protection to combat child labour. Providing families with direct assistance to help them weather crises
can help reduce negative coping strategies like child labour and child marriage.
The report also shows that the impact of social protection measures is even greater if countries also put
in place integrated systems that provide social protection benefits across the lifecycle.
Unfortunately, too little progress has been made in expanding social protection services to reach the
families in greatest need – and the children at greatest risk. Worldwide, the families of approximately 1.5
billion children 14 and under receive no family or child cash benefits at all.
We can and must change this.
Authored jointly by the ILO and UNICEF, this report is intended to inform discussion at the 5th Global
Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour, in South Africa in May 2022 – and to spur urgent action
by governments to build comprehensive, child-sensitive social protection systems. The joint endeavour
of Alliance 8.7 and the Global Partnership for Universal Social Protection (USP2030) could also be an
important vehicle to advance this effort and support Member States.
We cannot emphasize strongly enough that the choices made by countries now will affect millions of
children alive today and millions yet to be born. We urge decisionmakers to live up to their commitments
– and to implement the recommendations contained in this report.
Investing more in universal social protection will help millions of children realize their right to be children
– and to reach their full potential, free from the scourge of child labour.
Guy Ryder Catherine Russell

Director General Executive Director
International Labour Organization United Nations Children’s Fund
4 X The role of social protection in the elimination of child labour: Evidence review and policy implications
X Contents
Foreword. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Acronyms and abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Executive Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Child labour is at a crossroads. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Strong social protection systems are necessary for the reduction and eventual elimination
of child labour. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Design features of social protection policies matter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
What’s in this report?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1. Trends in child labour and social protection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

1.1 Child labour. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Prevalence of child labour in the recent past. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Prevalence of child labour since the COVID-19 pandemic.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
1.2 Social protection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
The state of social protection worldwide. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Social protection during the COVID-19 pandemic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
1.3 Social protection and child labour across countries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2. Social protection as a policy response to child labour: What does the evidence say? . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.2 Overview of the evidence base. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.3 Transfer programmes directed at families with children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Maternity protection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Unconditional and conditional cash transfers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
In-kind transfers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Integrated social protection programmes (“Cash plus”) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
2.4 Public employment programmes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
2.5 Unemployment protection .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
2.6 Income security in old age.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
2.7 Social protection for people with disabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
2.8 Social health protection .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3. Where next for social protection and child labour?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

3.1 Building social protection systems for children: Turning promises and plans
into reality and action, now. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.2 Designing social protection programmes that prevent and reduce child labour:
What does the evidence say?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Bibliography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Contents
X 5
Boxes
1.1 Defining child labour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

1.2. The numbers at a glance: The absence of social protection
for different population groups and selected benefits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
1.3. Conceptualizing universal social protection .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
1.4. Utilizing existing child benefits for a child-focused pandemic response. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.1. The policy choice of conditionality versus unconditionality. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.2. The promise of universal basic income: expected impacts and challenges. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Figures
1.1 Percentage and number of children aged 5 to 17 in child labour and hazardous work,
global estimates, 2000-2020 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.2 Percentage and number (in million) of children aged 5 to 17 in child labour,
by region, 2020. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
1.3 Effective social protection coverage (SDG indicator 1.3.1),
global and regional estimates, by population group, 2020 or latest available year . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
1.4 Public social protection and health expenditure as a percentage of GDP,
by social protection floor guarantee, 2020 or latest available year .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
1.5 Scatterplot of social protection coverage and prevalence of child labour, 2017-2019. . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.1 Geographical distribution of studies (2010 to present) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.2 Distribution of studies and programmes by category, 2010 to present. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.1 Elements of an integrated social protection system for addressing child labour. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Tables
1.1 COVID-19 response: Expenditure on social protection and labour measures spending,
by income group, 2020-21 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.1 Summary of study findings (2010 to present). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Acknowledgements
This report has been jointly prepared by the ILO and UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti. Members of
the core team included Christina Behrendt (ILO), Federico Blanco (ILO), Valeria Groppo (UNICEF), Nathalie
Guilbert (UNICEF), Scott Lyon (ILO), Clotilde Mahe (UNICEF), Ian Orton (ILO), Dominic Richardson (UNICEF),
Benjamin Smith (ILO), Lou Tessier (ILO) and Nyasha Tirivayi (UNICEF).
Contributions and comments were also received from Greta Cartoceti, Ursula Kulke, Henrik Moller, Victor
Hugo Ricco (ILO) and Natalia Winder-Rossi (UNICEF).
7
Acronyms and abbreviations

AP Asia and the Pacific region
FAO Food and Agriculture Organization (United Nations)
GDP Gross domestic product
HIC High-income countries
ICI International Cocoa Initiative
ILO International Labour Office/Organization
LAC Latin America and the Caribbean region
LIC Low-income countries
LMIC Lower-middle-income countries
NGO Non-governmental organization
ODI Overseas Development Institute (United Kingdom)
PEP Public employment programme
SDG Sustainable Development Goal
SSA Sub-Saharan Africa
UBI Universal basic income
UBOS Uganda Bureau of Statistics
UCB Universal child benefits
UMIC Upper-middle-income countries
UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund
USP Universal social protection
X
X Executive Summary
Child labour is at a crossroads

X
At the beginning of 2020 1 in 10 children aged 5 and over were involved in child labour
worldwide – equating to an estimated 160 million children, or 63 million girls and 97 million
boys. Despite significant progress in reducing child labour in the past two decades, most
recent data shows that global progress on this measure has stalled since 2016 (ILO and
UNICEF 2021).
Global estimates hide uneven progress by region in the past 20 years, with Asia and the
Pacific (AP), and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) showing steady reductions overall,
while rates actually increased in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) from 2012 onwards. Although
there is much variation across countries within each region, today, there are more children
in child labour in SSA than in the rest of the world combined.
Evidence by age groups shows that there has been a greater toll on children aged 5-11
years, whose rates of child labour actually increased in contrast to a steady reduction for
those aged 12 years or above. Girls are faring better than boys, whose trend decreased
more slowly over time, and indeed reversed to register an overall increase in recent years
(ILO and UNICEF 2021).
The above trends undermine children’s rights, well-being, and development, as well as the
efforts being made through the Sustainable Development Goals and other mechanisms
to eradicate child labour.
And what is more, these trends were observed prior to the onset of the COVID-19 crisis,
which has put millions more children at risk of child labour. It is estimated that without
mitigation strategies, the number of children in child labour could rise by 8.9 million by
the end of 2022, due to higher poverty and increased vulnerability (ILO and UNICEF 2021).
X Strong social protection systems

are necessary for the reduction and
eventual elimination of child labour
By reducing family poverty risks and vulnerability, supporting livelihoods and school enrol-
ment amongst other things, government social protection systems are essential in the fight
to eradicate and prevent child labour (ILO 2013; ILO and UNICEF 2019 and 2021; Dammert
et al. 2018; De Hoop and Rosati 2014a).
The good news is that in recent years many countries have significantly improved social
protection coverage, by strengthening their social protection systems, and establishing
effective social protection floors (ILO 2021d).1 However, global coverage is still too low:
as of 2020, less than half of the global population were effectively covered by at least
one social protection benefit, leaving more than four billion people wholly unprotected.2
Social protection coverage varies widely by region, broadly aligned with income levels (see
Section 1.3).
Importantly, for child labour concerns at the global level, the vast majority of children under
15s – 73.6 per cent or 1.5 billion children in total – receive no child or family cash benefits
(ILO 2021d). In many cases, programmes are not designed with the objective of benefiting
children directly or to address child labour risk specifically. And, where other benefits are
available, they are often not sufficiently adequate, comprehensive3 and child-sensitive and
in many cases the quality of services is far from satisfactory.
Coverage and quality limitations are associated with underinvestment in social protection.
Prior to the pandemic, low-income countries (LIC) and lower-middle-income countries
(LMIC) spent respectively 1.1 and 2.5 per cent of GDP on social protection (excluding
healthcare), compared to 8 per cent in upper-middle-income countries (UMIC) and 16.4 per
cent in high‑income countries (HIC). Countries spend on average 12.9 per cent of GDP on
social protection, and child-specific spending was a mere 1.1 per cent (ILO 2021d). With
children making up around 28 per cent of the global population, it is clear that this level of
child-specific social protection spending is too low. Filling this “financing gap” for children,
to ensure at least minimum provision for all, should be a priority, and an action which is
likely to have significant implications for child labour too.
The need to access healthcare, sickness and unemployment benefits, care and family
friendly-policies, became especially acute after the outbreak of COVID-19, and 2020 saw the
largest mobilization of government social protection measures ever (Gentilini et al. 2022;
ILO 2021c and 2021d). The ILO estimated that expanding social protection to adequately
respond to the COVID-19 crisis could reduce the number of children in child labour by
15.1 million between 2020 and 2022 (ILO and UNICEF 2021).
1 Many low- and middle-income countries have achieved universal or near-universal social protection coverage for different types
of benefits, for example for child benefits (Argentina, Brazil); maternity protection (Mongolia); disability benefits (Brazil) and old-age
pensions (Argentina, Plurinational State of Bolivia, Botswana, Cabo Verde, China, Lesotho, Mauritius, Mongolia, Namibia, Thailand,
Timor-Leste, and Trinidad and Tobago) (ILO 2021d).
2 Excluding healthcare and sickness benefits.
3 Comprehensiveness refers to the range of life-cycle risks and contingencies covered, while adequacy refers to the benefit amount
of social protection programmes.
Executive summary
X 11
However, the sensitivity of the overall social protection response to COVID-19 to the needs
of families with children has been limited. Government stimuli in high-income countries
and middle-income countries made little use of child-specific social protection measures,
and instead focused on business supports and job protection schemes – often excluding
households without secure and formal employment (Richardson et al. 2020a and 2020b).
Indeed, support for vulnerable groups in the COVID-19 response in general was criticized by
the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty as being “maladapted, short-term, reactive,
and inattentive to the realities of people in poverty” (De Schutter 2020).
To strengthen social protection systems for the reduction and elimination of child
labour, this report recommends:
X Close the yawning gap in the coverage of social protection for children by promoting
inclusive social protection systems, and develop sustainable and equitable financing
for this, as a matter of priority. This could translate into prioritizing child benefits as well
as extending social protection to the two billion informal economy workers. The latter
will support their transition to the formal economy. Formalization is a critical step in
sustainable tax and transfer systems.
X Don’t wait for development to build social protection systems – these systems are key
to development. How specific social protection programmes complement one another
within a system will determine overall efforts in addressing the determinants of house-
holds’ vulnerability to child labour across the life course. This is true also for integrated
cross-sectoral social provision for children. No single programme will do the job.
X In support of system building efforts, policymakers can utilize existing international
policy commitments to universal social protection in building political consensus
for action. Pre-existing commitments and frameworks, including the Sustainable
Development Agenda and Goals (SDGs) and the strong tripartite policy consensus
agreed by the International Labour Conference, offer this opportunity.
X Design features of social protection policies matter

While social protection can be a powerful tool to combat child labour, it is not guaranteed
that it reduces child labour in all cases. For instance, access to cash benefits can reduce the
demand for child labour and increase household investment in children’s education, yet, at
the same time, such transfers can lead to households investing in productive assets such
as livestock or agricultural inputs that can potentially increase the demand for child labour.
It is through the expansion of household economic activities that children can be drawn
into child labour, sometimes in hazardous conditions,4 pparticularly if households cannot
afford to access labour-saving technologies or engage adult workers.
To help ensure that productive investments by families do not increase child labour, the
design features of social protection programmes matter. The transfer amounts, regularity
and predictability, and duration of payments can all determine the child labour impacts
of social protection. Moreover, as child labour is also influenced by national child labour
legislation and enforcement capacity, social norms, local markets and infrastructure, as
well as schooling access and quality, programme design features need to account for
contexts to be effective in reducing it. Overall, it is a combination of economic, social, and
educational policies (underpinned by appropriate national legislation and enforcement)
that is needed to provide families and children with viable and sustained alternatives to
child labour (Thévenon and Edmonds 2019).
To strengthen the design of social protection programmes for the reduction and
elimination of child labour, including its worst forms, this report recommends:
X Make use of inclusive universal social protection programmes which can increase the
coverage and take-up of benefits by limiting exclusion errors, reducing stigma and
shame, and procedural complexity, and therefore lower transaction and opportunity
cost barriers.
X Apply child-sensitive designs that consider the potential implications in terms of child
labour, in the different sectors where children work. This can include sensitization on
children’s rights, or provision of information on the hazards related to child labour. In
combination, positive “messaging” on the relevance of promoting education over labour
can make the difference.
X Ensure both adequacy and predictability of social protection benefits. This is critical for
generating protective impacts on child labour. Setting adequate benefit levels means
taking into account household size and number of children, and adapting transfer
amounts according to contexts such as local prices and wages, and revising transfer
amounts to account for inflation. Regular payments make for predictable incomes, and
longer-term decision making, including productive investments, that secure futures
including for children at risk of child labour.
X Combine social protection programmes with complementary and resourced interven-
tions in the education and health sectors – this is particularly relevant in humanitarian
settings, or settings where services might be weak or where supply struggles to meet
demand. For instance, where education facilities are missing or of low quality, house-
holds may lack sufficient incentives to invest cash benefits in education opportunities.
4 Similar mechanisms are at play for any interventions that incentivize adults to start economic activities or new businesses.
Executive summary
X 13
What’s in this report?

X
This report explores the mechanisms by which social protection can impact child labour,
and assesses the role of programme design features and contextual characteristics. To
do this, it updates and expands previous ILO work in this area (ILO 2013), builds on recent
systematic reviews (Bastagli et al 2019; Dammert et al. 2018), and conducts new searches
for impact evaluations on the child labour impact of social protection in the period 2010-22.
Because all forms of social protection can impact child labour (even when not designed
with an explicit child labour reduction objective) this report considers programmes beyond
child and family benefits to include social protection available to caregivers of children
(working-age adults and older persons) such as unemployment benefits or pensions. To
learn more about the importance of design features, the report examines and compares
different types of social protection programmes from non-contributory tax-financed
schemes, contributory schemes, labour market policies for caregivers of children, social
services, and integrated social protection programmes that combine cash benefits and
services (“cash plus”).
Section 1 follows with a closer look at child labour trends and social protection policies
globally. Section 2 summarizes the evidence on social protection policies by type, and
their impacts on child labour. Section 3 concludes with policy implications and research
recommendations.
15
X 1.
Trends in
child labour and
social protection
X 1.1 Child labour

Prevalence of child labour in the recent past
Globally, significant progress has been made in reducing child labour in the past two decades (ILO and
UNICEF 2021). The number of children in child labour declined by 85.5 million between 2000 and 2020,
before the onset of COVID-19. The prevalence of child labour also declined substantially, from 16 to 9.6 per
cent. Similar progress was observed for children working in hazardous conditions (figure 1.1).
However, the decline in the prevalence of child labour has slowed over time and has stalled since 2016.
Between 2016 and 2020, the absolute number of children in child labour increased by more than eight
million, from 152 to 160 million children, of which 79 million were working under conditions directly
endangering their health and safety. Some definitions of what constitutes child labour are given in box 1.1.
X Figure 1.1 Percentage and number of children aged 5 to 17 in child labour and hazardous work,
global estimates, 2000-2020
300 25
245.5
250
222.3 20
215.2
16.0
200
14.2 168.0
13.6 15
Percentage
160.0
151.6
Million
150 10.6
9.6 9.6
11.1 10
100
8.2
7.3
5
50 5.4
4.6 4.7
170.5 128.4 115.3 85.3 72.5 79.0
0 0
2000 2004 2008 2012 2016 2020
Number of children in hazardous work Number of children in child labour
Prevalence of child labour Prevalence of hazardous work
Source: ILO and UNICEF (2021).

By age, child labour is increasing among children 5 to 11 years old, with the latest estimates registering
an increase of 16.8 million younger children in child labour between 2016 and 2020. Of particular concern
is that about 40 per cent of these additional children were performing hazardous work. Over 75 per cent
of younger children in child labour work in agriculture and about 83 per cent of them work within family
(farms or non-farm) microenterprises.
Since 2016, the share of children that worked within the family increased, a trend that has been linked to
the growth in the number of younger children in child labour overall (ILO and UNICEF 2021).
X Box 1.1. Defining child labour
Three main international human and labour rights instruments – the Convention on
the Rights of the Child, the ILO Minimum Age for Admission to Employment Convention
(No. 138) and the universally ratified ILO Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (No. 182)
– set legal boundaries for child labour and provide grounds for national and international
actions to end it. Child labour comprises work that children are too young to perform, that
is, below the minimum age for work, which is usually 15 years (developing countries may
set it at 14), and 13 years for light work that does not interfere with schooling. In all cases,
the minimum age for work should be the same as the age of completion of compulsory
education. The minimum age for hazardous work, which is work that by its nature or
circumstances is likely to harm children’s health, safety or moral development, is 18.
Hazardous work is one of the worst forms of child labour, which also include slavery and
similar practices, commercial sexual exploitation, and the use of children in illicit activities
such as drug trafficking. Child labour can encompass work in both the formal and informal
economy, inside and outside family settings, for pay or profit (cash or in-kind, part-time or
full-time) and domestic work outside the child’s own household for an employer (paid
or unpaid).
Source: ILO (2018a).
Moreover, the prevalence of child labour is increasingly unequal across regions. Figure 1.2 shows the
number of children in child labour and the prevalence of child labour across regions. Both are highly
unequal, with Africa standing out both in terms of absolute numbers and prevalence. In early 2020, the
prevalence of child labour was 21.6 per cent in Africa, more than twice the global average.
1. Why look at social protection and child labour now?
X 17
X Figure 1.2 Percentage and number (in million) of children aged 5 to 17 in child labour,
by region, 2020
200 25
160.0
160 21.6 20
120 15
Percentage
Million
92.2
80 10
9.6
48.7
40 6.0 5
5.6
8.2
0 0
World Africa Asia and the Pacific Latin America and
the Caribbean
Number of children in child labour Prevalence of child labour
Source: ILO and UNICEF (2021).
Within each region there are similar disparities by country. For example, in South Asia the child labour rate
is 11 per cent on average, ranging from 0.9 per cent in Sri Lanka to 23.6 per cent in Afghanistan (ILOSTAT).5
Several factors can explain cross-regional variation in child labour:
X Monetary and multidimensional poverty influences child labour prevalence, as it is one way
for families to manage poverty and deprivation risks. In sub-Saharan Africa higher rates of child
labour are seen alongside levels of extreme poverty that affect two in five people (World Bank
2022). Of further concern are estimates suggesting that as many as nine out of ten children in
sub-Saharan Africa will live in extreme poverty by 2030 (UNICEF 2016b).
X Informality is experienced by an estimated two billion workers worldwide leading to lower
and irregular incomes, unsafe working conditions, and extreme job precarity. Moreover, labour
informality means less access to contributory social protection schemes and narrowly targeted
social assistance. Africa, where child labour increased in the latest examined period, was the
region with the highest prevalence of informal employment (85.6 per cent) in 2016 (ILO 2018b).
X Social protection, by providing additional sources of regular income and access to health care,
or compensating households in the face of economic or health shocks, can effectively reduce
the need for households to resort to child labour as a precautionary or coping strategy. Despite
progress in extending social protection, coverage still falls short and remains unequal across
regions, as detailed in Section 2.2.
5 For South Asia, data are available for six countries: Afghanistan (2014), Bangladesh (2019), Bhutan (2010), Myanmar (2015), Nepal
(2014), Sri Lanka (2016) (ILOSTAT).
X Education, or children being out of school, is frequently linked to child labour. To reduce child
labour, it is essential that families can afford to send children to school, and that households’
perceived returns to schooling are greater than those associated with child labour. Globally,
although the share of children out of primary school has markedly declined in recent years,
large regional disparities in both educational expenditures and access to schools remain
(Al-Samarrai et al. 2021).
X Population growth differences by region are likely to be associated with child labour
trends. In LAC, the number of children engaged in child labour dropped by six million
from 2008 to 2020 as the child population fell by 4.8 million; whereas, over the same period,
AP experienced a decline in the number of children in child labour of 64.9 million, while
the child population increased by 12.8 million. In contrast, in SSA the number of children
engaged in child labour rose by 21.5 million and, simultaneously, the child population increased
by 104.8 million.6
A range of other factors related to countries in crisis are likely to be contributing factors. For instance,
both conflict and displacement are higher in Africa than elsewhere (World Bank 2020; United Nations
General Assembly 2020) – leading to vulnerabilities to which child labour may be one mechanism for
coping. In addition, in fragile States social protection coverage is also very low and poverty rates are
disproportionately high (Silwal et al. 2020).
Prevalence of child labour since the COVID-19 pandemic

Following the outbreak of COVID-19, the economic losses and health shocks experienced by households
significantly increased the risk of child labour. Protracted school closures represented another risk factor.7
Survey data showed an immediate decrease in children’s participation in economic activity at the start of
the pandemic (ILO and UNICEF forthcoming) – suggesting that the overall decline in economic activities
associated with lockdowns had affected children’s work too. However, in some household where lockdowns
led to falls in earned income, children started to work more. Testimonies from 81 children across Ghana,
Nepal, and Uganda revealed that they had to work to eat, as their families no longer had enough food.
Those already working before the crisis started working longer hours after school closures (Human
Rights Watch 2021).
The testimonies of children are consistent with recent statistics from Uganda, showing that the prevalence
of child labour rose from 21 to 36 per cent during COVID-19 (UBOS 2021).8 In Côte d’Ivoire an assessment
of 263 communities also found a major increase in child labour in cocoa businesses between July and
September 2020, compared to the same period 12 months earlier (ICI 2020). In Egypt, children were sent
to work in cotton cultivation and other agricultural work (ILO 2020c). And in both Ecuador and Brazil (São
Paulo) the prevalence of child participation in economic activities also increased once the pandemic had
started (UNICEF Ecuador and Inclusión SAS 2020; UNICEF Brazil 2020).
Results reported above, and in a recent global simulation of child labour trends by ILO and UNICEF (2021)
suggest that any decline in child labour due to COVID-19 is likely to be outweighed by a rebound in child
labour prevalence due to increased poverty risks over time.
6 Figures for 2008 are from Diallo et al. (2010). Figures for 2020 are from UNDESA (2019).
7 Across eight West African countries, children consistently reported working because there was no school, so their parents ex-
pected that they should work (World Vision 2020), or were not willing to leave them at home alone, unsupervised (Franceinfo Afrique
2020). School closures also resulted in significant learning losses (Patrinos and Donnelly 2021), which, in turn, may increase school
dropout and child labour.
8 The 2019/20 Uganda National Household Survey was conducted in two phases, each covering about half of the sample. Phase I
lasted from September 2019 to February 2020, and Phase II from July to November 2020 (UBOS 2021).
X 19
X 1.2 Social protection

The state of social protection worldwide
Despite progress made in the coverage of social protection in recent years, it has not been enough. As
of 2020 and prior to COVID-19, only 46.9 per cent of the global population were effectively covered by at
least one social protection benefit, while the remaining portion – as many as 4.1 billion people – were left
wholly unprotected (see figure 1.3 and the stark absolute numbers in box 1.2). Behind this global average,
there are significant inequalities across and within regions, with coverage rates equalling 56.3 per cent
in LAC, 44.1 per cent in AP and 17.4 per cent in Africa.
Only 26.4 per cent of children worldwide receive social protection benefits. Despite some important
progress in the extension of social protection to children in recent decades, the vast majority of children
– 73.6 per cent of children aged 0-14, a significant number of whom must labour – receive no child or
family cash benefits. Effective coverage is particularly low in Asia and Pacific (18 per cent) and Africa (12.6
per cent) (ILO 2021d).
X Box 1.2. The numbers at a glance: The absence of social protection

for different population groups and selected benefits
X 1.5 billion children aged 0-14

receive no child or family cash benefits
X 71 million mothers with newborns

do not receive cash maternity benefits
One third of the working-age population

X
is legally entitled to sickness cash benefits
X 179 million unemployed persons

do not have access to unemployment cash benefits
X 150 million persons with disabilities

do not receive a disability cash benefit
X 164 million older persons

do not receive a pension
X 2.7 billion people

are not protected by any kind of health protection scheme
Source: ILO (2021d); World Social Protection Data Dashboards.

X Figure 1.3 Effective social protection coverage (SDG indicator 1.3.1),

global and regional estimates, by population group, 2020 or latest available year
Latin America and the Caribbean
Covered by at least one

social protection benefit 56.3
Children 41.5
Older persons 75.4
Unemployed 12.5
Severe disabilities 57.7
Mothers with newborns 30.5
Work injury 40.8
Vulnerable persons covered
by social assistance
36.0
Africa

Children 12.6
Older persons 27.1
Unemployed 5.3
Work injury 18.4
9.3
Asia and the Pacific

Children 18.0
Older persons 73.5
Unemployed 14.0
Work injury 24.8
25.3
World

Children 26.4
Older persons 77.5
Unemployed 18.6
Work injury 34.4
28.9
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
% of the population group
Notes: See Annex 2 of ILO (2021d) for a methodological Sources: ILO (2021d); World Social Protection Database,
explanation. Global and regional aggregates are weighted by based on the SSI; ILOSTAT; national sources.
relevant population groups.
X 21
These gaps in coverage, adequacy and comprehensiveness are associated with significant underin-
vestment in social protection systems for all groups and especially children. At the global level, national
expenditure on social protection for children reaches only 1.1 per cent of GDP, compared to 12.9 per cent
of GDP spent overall on social protection (see figure 1.4). In Africa, the region with the largest share of
children in the population and the greatest need for social protection, an equivalent of 0.4 per cent of
GDP is spent on social protection for children (ILO 2021d).
It is high time that adequate and sustainable financing is found to close these protection gaps by achieving
universal social protection for all, especially children. To guarantee at least a basic level of social security
through a nationally defined social protection floor, LMIC countries would need to invest an additional
US$362.9 billion and UMIC countries a further US$750.8 billion per year, equivalent to 5.1 and 3.1 per cent
of GDP respectively. LIC countries would need to invest an additional US$77.9 billion, equivalent to 15.9
per cent of their GDP (ILO 2020b; Durán et al. 2020).
X Figure 1.4 Public social protection and health expenditure as a percentage of GDP,
by social protection floor guarantee, 2020 or latest available year
Latin America and the Caribbean
Total expenditure on social protection

(excluding health) 10.1
Children 0.5
Working-age population 2.0
Old age 5.9
Health expenditure 3.9
Africa

Children 0.4
Old age 2.2
Asia and the Pacific

Children 1.1
Old age 5.1
World

Children 1.1
Old age 7.0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
Public social protection expenditures, by guarantee (% of GDP)
Notes: See Annex 2 of ILO (2021d) for a methodological Sources: ILO (2021d); World Social Protection Database,
explanation. based on the SSI; ILOSTAT; national sources.
Importantly, the ILO’s June 2021 International Labour Conference – comprising governments, workers, and
employers – called for universal social protection systems for all (see box 1.3) (ILO 2021b). This represents
an emphatic reaffirmation of political and tripartite commitment to close gaps in social protection.
UNICEF’s new strategic plan also prioritizes efforts to achieve inclusive social protection for all children,
in the organization’s work between 2022 and 2025 (UNICEF 2022b).
X Box 1.3. Conceptualizing universal social protection
This report employs the definition agreed upon by governments, employers, and workers
at the 2021 International Labour Conference. Here it was agreed that “universal social
protection entails actions and measures to realize the human right to social security by
progressively building and maintaining nationally appropriate social protection systems,
so that everyone has access to comprehensive, adequate and sustainable protection over
the life cycle, in line with ILO standards” (ILO 2021b, para. 3).
This commitment to universal social protection sends a clear signal to policymakers.
In contrast to a patchy, minimalist social safety net approach, building universal social
protection systems anchored in a rights-based approach can progressively guarantee more
comprehensive and adequate provision for all, which is sustainably and equitably financed.
The Global Partnership for Universal Social Protection (USP2030) also emphasizes that
universal social protection is achieved through a nationally-defined system of policies and
programmes that provide equitable access to all people and protect them throughout their
lives against poverty and risks to their livelihoods and well-being. It emphasizes five core
principles: protection throughout the life cycle, universal coverage, national ownership,
sustainable and equitable financing, and participation and social dialogue (USP2030 2019).
Despite the promise of these recent international developments and the large social protection response
to the pandemic, now is not the time for complacency, and policymakers must redouble their efforts to
close these protection gaps identify and implement those types of social protection that best address
child labour.
X 23
Social protection during the COVID-19 pandemic

Social protection was a critical pillar of the COVID-19 response. Governments were effectively able to
use existing systems to channel urgent and emergency support. The response was commendable given
existing fiscal constraints and multiple priorities. At the same time, the pandemic also brought to light
the large gaps in social protection provision, and highlighted the difficulties of the two billion informal
economy workers and their families, women, care givers, migrants and others. However, an important
development has been the crucial role that social protection has played in an unprecedented policy
response worldwide.
Between February 2020 and March 2022, 1,730 social protection responses have been announced or
implemented in over 200 countries and territories (ILO 2022). Undoubtedly, without this massive and
rapid expansion of social protection through the pre-existing provision, and introducing emergency
measures, the human and socioeconomic toll of the crisis would have been much greater – demonstrating
the indispensability of social protection as a cornerstone of all well-functioning and responsive societies.
During COVID-19, countries that already had strong social protection systems were able to use them to
guarantee better protection. However, countries without such strong systems developed parallel systems
to support many households, and although these were critical and lifesaving for particular groups (such as
migrants, caregivers, informal workers) on many occasions these could not take advantage of pre-existing
infrastructure, were temporary, or lacked an adequate protective response.
However, the quality of response depended not only on the quality of pre-existing social protection
systems, but also on the fiscal response that could be mobilized. Expenditure on the social protection
response varied across low- and middle-income countries, with the average expenditure per capita
ranging from US$8 in LIC countries to US$145 in UMIC countries (see table 1.1). Whilst recognizing the
fiscal constraints in many countries, this is insufficient to be deemed adequate for people to ride out the
pandemic with enough protection against poverty and falling living standards.
X Table 1.1 COVID-19 response: Expenditure on social protection and labour measures spending,
by income group, 2020-21
Income group Spending (billion US $) Average US $ per capita % of GDP
HIC 2,575 716 2.1
LIC 5.7 8 1.3
LMIC 94.6 45 1.7
UMIC 324.3 145 2.5
Source: Gentilini et al. (2022).
Many countries provided benefits to previously unprotected workers, such as workers in the informal
economy in some cases, at least temporarily, and in doing so opened policy windows to extend social
protection coverage to informal workers in a more sustained way (ILO 2020a, 2021a and 2021d). Provisions
for unprotected workers have potential to positively impact child labour when concentrated in informal
family-based agriculture or where families have previously been excluded from work-related protection
and tax-financed social assistance (ILO and FAO 2021).
Nevertheless, the sheer size of the COVID-19 response was deceptive, as in many cases the social protection
responses were constrained by limited child sensitivity. Children were among certain more-vulnerable
population groups that were underserved by the response: of the social protection response measures
announced between February and December 2020, only 7.6 per cent were directed at children and families
(ILO 2021d). This is troubling given the evidence for child-sensitive social protection being an effective
response to crises in all contexts (Tirivayi et al. 2020). While some good practice examples were observed,
these were exceptions to the rule, and would have done little to arrest the increase in child labour (see
box 1.4). To compound the issues of a lack of child-focus in response, most emergency cash transfer
support was short-lived (4.5 months on average) (Gentilini et al. 2022).
Given the ongoing pandemic, fiscal consolidation, inflation, fuel and food prices hikes and the pervasive
challenges posed by climate change, there is clear potential for the further exacerbation of child poverty
and inequality, and this has significant implications for child labour if left unaddressed.
The jury is still out as to whether the multitude of pandemic response measures might result in the
long-term and sustainable extension of social protection in some contexts. However, the ruling is clearer
from a child-sensitivity perspective. Despite its promise, an opportunity was lost during the response.
The immediate and long-term needs of children could have been far better addressed programmatically
and in the fiscal allocation for child-focused responses – a goal more likely to be achieved if policymakers
build stronger, child-sensitive social protection systems now, and beyond the pandemic.
XBox 1.4. Utilizing existing child benefits for a child-focused pandemic response
Outlined below are examples of some lower-income countries with established child
benefits that were able to scale up or appropriately modify protection quickly when the
pandemic struck. This emphatically underlines the importance of having systems and
provisions in place to contend not only with ordinary life-cycle challenges but also those
that are primed and can be easily bolstered to respond to shocks. They continue to support
children and their caregivers during the crisis response and recovery phases. It is precisely
for this reason that ILO and UNICEF have been advocating for universal child benefits
(UCBs) to protect all children in crises or times of non-crisis (ILO and UNICEF 2019; ODI and
UNICEF 2020; ILO 2021d).
X Mongolia: increased its Child Money Programme monthly benefit by five times from MNT
20,000 per month to MNT 100,000 for one year.
X Guatemala and the Philippines: dropped the behavioral conditions assigned to their child
benefits to removed impediments to benefit take-up.
X South Africa: increased the amount of the Child Support Grant, usually R450, by R300 in
May and R500 (US$27) June-October 2020 and provided it to every caregiver each month.
Source: Bastagli et al. (2022).

X 25
X 1.3 Social protection and child labour

across countries
Higher social protection coverage is associated with lower child labour prevalence. Figure 1.5 shows data
on child labour prevalence and the proportion of households covered by any type of social protection
transfer, across 23 countries. The four quadrants are distinguished by the average child labour rate (14.5
per cent) and average share of households covered by social assistance (26.6 per cent).9 Among the ten
countries in the sample with high social assistance coverage, eight have below-average child labour
rates – data from the two outlier countries suggests that higher social protection coverage does not
automatically guarantee lower than average child labour rates.
However, more efforts are needed to simultaneously collect data on social protection and child labour
across countries.
X Figure 1.5 Scatterplot of social protection coverage and prevalence of child labour, 2017-2019
45
40
CHA
Prevalence of child labour for age 5-17 (SGD 8.7.1)
MAD
35
30
LAO ZIM
CAR
25 TON
SL
KYR
20
KIR
15
SAM
10 SAO
SER
GUY
BAN OPT
CR
5 KOS
IRA SUR
MAC BEL
ALG TUV
0
0 0 20 30 40 50 60 70
Percentage of households receiving any type of social protection transfer
Note: 23 low- and middle-income countries (Algeria, Bangladesh, Belarus, Central African Republic, Chad, Costa Rica, Guyana,
Iraq, Kiribati, Kosovo, Kyrgyz Republic, Lao PDR, Madagascar, North Macedonia, Occupied Palestinian Territory, Samoa, São Tomé
and Principe, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Suriname, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Zimbabwe).
Source: UNICEF MICS 6.
That countries are also populating the lower left quadrant of figure 1.5, where both social protection
coverage and child labour rates are low, underlines the evidence that social protection coverage is not
the only factor that might simultaneously determine child labour. Factors such as laws, social norms and
school attendance may also be at play. Building on this basic association, and to correctly identify the
impact of social protection on child labour, Section 2 looks at the recent evidence of child labour impacts
of social protection based on studies applying experimental or quasi-experimental methods.
9 A similar pattern is observed for hazardous work (figure not reported).

27
X 2.
Social protection
as a policy response
to child labour: What
does the evidence say? 11
X 2.1 Introduction10
This review aims to answer the following questions, in the context of low- and middle-income countries:
X What is known about the impacts of social protection systems, schemes and programmes on child
labour outcomes?
X What is known about the contextual factors that influence these impacts?
X What design features of social protection programmes increase or reduce their effectiveness in
addressing child labour, and how can programmes be adapted to strengthen beneficial impacts?
X What are the evidence gaps and priorities for future research?
To answer these questions, this report synthesizes findings from rigorous impact evaluations of social
protection programmes.11 Following both UNICEF’s and the ILO’s life-cycle approach to social protection
(UNICEF 2019; ILO 2021d), the report reviews programmes that address the diverse needs and vulnera-
bilities of families with children, working-age populations and older persons. Programmes are classified
in the following categories: programmes for families with children including maternity protection, cash
or in-kind transfers, and integrated social protection programmes (“cash plus”); public employment
programmes; unemployment protection; income security in old age. Two categories cross-cutting the
life course are also considered: social protection for people with disabilities, and social health protection.
For each programme area, the report reviews interventions that can potentially influence child labour
outcomes, even if that is not an explicit objective of the intervention.12
The review primarily focuses on social protection programmes anchored in law and implemented by
government agencies. However, considering the limited evidence available on social protection and
child labour for interventions other than cash transfers, as well as the learning potential from any social
protection intervention, the search was broadened to interventions by market-based actors, third sector
organizations (such as NGOs), or multilateral organizations.13 The evidence base covers the period 2010-22.
10 A considerable portion of this section draws on, and further develops, arguments and an earlier evidence base contained in an
earlier report (ILO 2013).
11 See Guilbert et al. (forthcoming), for details on the methodology used for the studies’ search and synthesis.
12 This review focuses on the following outcomes: (i) child labour, including work below the minimum age, the worst forms of child
labour, and hazardous household chores (see box 1.1); (ii) child participation or time spent in economic activities (such as agricultural
work, livestock herding, fishing, or participation in non-agricultural business -within or outside the household); and (iii) child
participation or time spent in household chores undertaken within children’s own homes, such as taking care of other children, elderly
or sick household members, cooking, cleaning. The description of study findings (sections 2.3-2.9) distinguishes between general
engagement in economic activities and engagement in child labour for elimination if this was analysed in the respective study.
13 This deviates from the common understanding that “programmes implemented solely by private organisations or non-
governmental organisations without government affiliation are not considered part of social protection” (UNICEF 2019).
X 2.2 Overview of the evidence base

Considering the period 2010 to the present, this review identified 62 studies covering 47 different pro-
grammes. Of these studies, 37 (60 per cent) found unambiguous reductions in children’s engagement in
productive activities (economic activities and/or household chores); 11 (18 per cent) reported increases
in children’s engagement in productive activities; seven (11 per cent) reported mixed effects, with pro-
grammes increasing some types of child labour activities and decreasing others; and the remaining seven
(11 per cent) reported no significant changes in children’s time allocation.
Fourteen of the studies identified included impacts on child labour as defined by ILO standards (such
as work under hazardous conditions or for long hours; see box 1.1 for details). Of these 14 studies, nine
(64 per cent) found unambiguous reductions in child labour, one found mixed effects, another study
found no impact, and the remaining three found increases in child labour.
X Table 2.1 Summary of study findings (2010 to present)
Social protection Evidence Child focus Evidence on impact on child

instrument or base labour outcomes
branch
Cash transfers Extensive •M

ost cash transfers set benefit Cash transfers help to reduce
(26 studies, 21 levels depending on the number children’s engagement in work or
programmes) of children in the household. household chores when amounts
•A
few programmes encourage are adequate, and payments are
recipients to spend (part of) the regular.
transfer on children’s wellbeing. • Consistent reductions in paid
work.
• Evidence on child labour in
household farms or businesses
is mixed, particularly when
households expand productive
activities.
In-kind transfers Limited • School feeding programmes are Limited evidence found mixed
(4 studies, specifically designed to address effects, depending on the
4 programmes) children’s needs. modality of distribution.
• Other in-kind programmes (food • In-kind transfers are less
subsidy, food distribution) can be effective at reducing child labour
directed at families with children. than cash transfers of similar
amount.
• School feeding is associated with
lower participation in economic
activities.
Integrated social Good • Several programmes provide The evidence is mixed, but this
protection (cash (11 studies, 7 households with information covers diverse programmes.
plus) on child protection issues and
programmes) • Combining cash with intense
linkages to child protection sensitization on child labour has
services. proven effective in reducing it.
• Other programmes are not • Programmes promoting
focused on children, but livelihood activities tend to
rather on household livelihood increase child labour, an issue
opportunities, with potentially that can be mitigated with
harmful consequences for sensitization sessions.
children if they are requested
to support new productive
activities.
2. Social protection as a policy response to child labour: What does the evidence say?
X 29
Social protection Evidence Child focus Evidence on impact on child

instrument or base labour outcomes
branch
Public Good The programmes covered by this The evidence to date is mixed.
employment (10 studies, 4 review did not have a focus on • Children may take over the
programmes children.
programmes) activities of other household
members participating in public
works.
• Adverse effects on child labour
are less likely when these
programmes pay more regular
and higher amounts.
Unemployment None No direct focus on children or Although no studies were found

protection identified on households raising children. on child labour, there is evidence
child labour that unemployment benefits
reduce poverty and vulnerability.
Maternity None Programmes are designed to Evidence linking maternity

protection identified on support primary caregivers of protection with long-term
child labour infant children allowing parents educational participation
to spend time with the child, these outcomes is mixed and
programmes are directly linked to predominantly from high-income
children’s well-being. countries.
Disability None Adult and child disability benefits, Although no studies were found
protection identified on common in high-income on child labour, there is evidence
child labour countries, are an obvious way to that disability benefits reduce
protect persons with disabilities. poverty and vulnerability.
Social health Limited Most health protection Consistent evidence that social
protection (five programmes favour a family health protection can reduce child
studies, four rather than an individual labour.
programmes) approach for service provision. • Protective effects for children
observed after health shocks.
• Social health insurance also
reduces child labour in absence
of health shocks.
Old-age pensions Limited (five No direct focus on children. Most studies showed that old-age
studies, five pensions reduce child work.
programmes) • Old-age pensions also increase
school enrolment.
Universal basic Limited (one UBI is, in principle, an Prevalence and time spent in
income study) individualized payment to children casual wage labour declined,
and adults. Whether children but time spent working for the
should get a smaller or larger sum household increased.
is a source of debate. • Other related evidence (from
simulations) suggests that
UBI would reduce poverty and
vulnerability and facilitate the
working-age population’s access
to work.
Note: The extent of the evidence base is defined as “limited” when fewer than 10 studies are available,
“good” when between 10 and 20 studies are available, and “extensive” when over 20 studies are available.
The selected 62 studies cover 28 low- and middle-income countries. The map in figure 2.1 shows the
distribution of the studies.14 Latin America and the Caribbean and Eastern and Southern Africa are the
regions with the highest number of studies (15 each), followed by South Asia (11 studies), Western and
Central Africa (nine studies), East Asia and Pacific (eight studies), and Middle East and Norther Africa
(four studies).
X Figure 2.1 Geographical distribution of studies (2010 to present)
4 or more 2-3 1 0 High income countries
Source: Elaboration based on the studies selected as part of the review.
Figure 2.2 shows the distribution of studies (and programmes examined) by programme type. Cash
transfers are the most studied type of social protection, as pertains to child labour outcomes. A second
group of commonly studied programmes includes integrated social protection programmes (cash plus).
In-kind transfers, social health protection and old-age pensions are studied relatively less frequently with
respect to their impacts on child labour.
14 A similar map is obtained when showing the number of programmes studied.

X 31
X Figure 2.2 Distribution of studies and programmes by category, 2010 to present
Cash transfers 26
22
In-kind transfers 4
4
Cash plus 11
8
Public works 10
4
Old-age pension 5
5
Social health protection 6

4
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Number of studies Number of programmes
Source: Elaboration based on the studies selected as part of the review.

X 2.3 Transfer programmes directed

at families with children
Maternity protection
X Key findings
No recent studies were found detailing the impacts of maternity protection on

child labour.
There is evidence linking maternity protection with the long-term educational
outcomes of children covered by such protection (maternity benefits, paid
parental and maternity leave). This evidence is mixed and mostly from high-
income countries.
More research is needed to fill the knowledge gap on the effects of maternity
protection, including access to free maternity care, on child labour, particularly
from low- and middle-income countries.
Future research should also investigate the impacts of maternity protection on
the education and labour of older (already existing) children within the family,
and in particular in the case of teenage pregnancies.
Working women and their families are vulnerable during pregnancy and after child-birth, which can
influence decisions on children’s education and child labour (ILO 2013). Adequate maternity protection
ensures the income security and access to health care that they need to prepare for childbirth and recover
and care for new children; preventing their premature return to work while safeguarding their jobs and
earnings.15
Theoretically, maternity protection can improve family well-being through the following pathways: less
stress during pregnancy; mothers and parents spending more of their time caring for their children during
early life; guaranteed income for the family and resources for nurturing the newborn(s) (Rossin-Slater 2017;
Carneiro et al. 2015); and access to good maternal healthcare without hardship (ILO 2021d). The second
and third pathways have implications on the wellbeing of all family members and their participation in
work including care and household chores. Without adequate maternity protection, poor families may
resort to child labour to cope with any deprivations, including with the high cost of delivery if maternity
care is not provided for free (ILO 2013).
To date, there is no robust evidence on the impacts of maternity protection on child labour. However,
there are studies that have examined the long-term educational outcomes of children covered by paid
parental and maternity leave, which can be used to infer greater investment in, and engagement with,
the education system.
15 See also https://www.ilo.org/global/topics/equality-and-discrimination/maternity-protection/lang--en/index.htm.

X 33
Evidence from high-income countries – focusing on school access and attainment – reports mixed
results:
X Extensions of maternity leave duration was associated with lower drop-out rates in Norway (Carneiro
et al. 2015).
X A recent review of extensions of parental/maternity leave duration showed little or no impact on
children’s graduation rates and education attainment in Denmark, Germany and Norway (Rossin-
Slater 2017).
This area is under-investigated and more attention should be paid to it considering the pathways
highlighted above. Future research should also investigate the impacts of maternity protection on
the education and labour of older children within the family, and in particular in the case of adolescent
pregnancies. Indeed, adolescent pregnancies in contexts where there is no social protection, maternity
care or cash benefits are at risk of both poverty and reproducing a cycle of early school drop out and
early labour market participation, especially for girls (WHO 2014).
Unconditional and conditional cash transfers
X Key findings
Family and child cash benefits represent an important source of income security
for households with children, and tend to reduce child labour.
Cash transfers consistently reduced children’s participation in paid work outside
the household.
As households partly invest cash transfers in productive activities, this may
determine an increase in children’s work within the household, including cases of
hazardous work.
Conditionality is not a prerequisite for the effectiveness of social protection in
terms of child labour.
Rather, the effectiveness of cash transfers in reducing child labour is related to
transfer size, duration, and regularity of payments.
Limited evidence on the worst forms of child labour suggests that if transfer size
is adequate and transfers are delivered sustainably over time, cash transfers can
also reduce the worst forms of child labour.
Cash transfers are generally implemented with the objectives to ensure income security and improve
living standards and food security, as well as to limit the risk of harmful coping strategies that may lock
households into intergenerational poverty cycles. In addition, they have been also used to reduce access
barriers to critical services, including education, health and nutrition. Cash transfers are expected to
reduce the demand for child labour through the additional resources they provide to households. However,
as the programmes also allow poor households to expand their investment in productive assets, the
demand for child labour may increase if this investment is not matched by adult labour supply, increases
in productivity or technological solutions.
In some contexts, when conditioning cash receipt to specific outcomes, conditional cash transfers aim to
change household behaviours and promote investment in human capabilities. However, evidence is clear
on the role that unconditional transfers also play to change household behaviours through higher income
security and better access to services, without making the receipt of benefits conditional upon specific
behaviours, and enhancing choice and planning capacities for programme participants. For instance, while
both conditional and unconditional transfers allow households to invest more in education, conditions
on attendance may provide a further incentive to attend school, and crowd out children’s time allocation
to labour. The debate whether to condition or not is a recurrent one (see box 2.1).
Evidence of conditional cash transfers is extensive and documents protective impacts on child labour
outcomes, although the magnitude of the effects was found to vary greatly across programmes and
contexts (ILO 2013). Early evidence on the effects of unconditional cash transfers was more limited and
produced mixed results.
The review completed for this report identified 26 studies on cash transfers, of which 12 were on uncon-
ditional cash transfers and 12 on conditional cash transfers; one study by Fenton et al. (2016) examined
the separate impacts of each transfer type, while another study by De Hoop et al. (2020a) focused on a
programme combining conditional and unconditional transfers (plus public employment).
Out of these 26 studies, 16 found that cash transfers caused a reduction in children’s participation in, or
time spent on, economic activities. Of the remaining studies, three found an increase, four found mixed
effects and the remaining three found no impact.
Two of the four studies reporting mixed evidence document the reallocation of children’s time within the
household. In Malawi and the United Republic of Tanzania, cash transfers reduced participation in paid
work outside the household, but increased participation in economic activities for the household (De
Hoop et al. 2020; De Hoop, Groppo and Handa 2020). In Zambia, children also increased their work within
the household farm, although without a corresponding reduction in work for pay outside the household,
possibly due to the relatively low prevalence of this activity among children at baseline (De Hoop, Groppo,
and Handa 2020). While generally safer compared to work outside the household, work within the
household can be hazardous. Indeed, in both Malawi and Zambia children’s engagement in hazardous
work increased following cash transfers (De Hoop, Groppo, and Handa 2020). Hazardous work remained
unchanged in the United Republic of Tanzania (De Hoop et al. 2020).
Four studies found that cash transfers reduced children’s participation or time spent in household chores
(Sebastian et al. 2019, Hiziroglu Aygün et al. 2021; De Hoop et al. 2018a; Cahyadi et al. 2020). This effect was
specific to girls in households receiving the Lesotho Child Grant Programme and the Indonesia Programme
Keluarga Harapan. Two studies reported that cash transfers were effective in fighting the worst forms of
child labour specifically among girls in the carpet weaving sector in Nepal (Edmonds and Shrestha 2014)
and among (supposedly boys) combatants in Colombia (Pena, Urrego, and Villa 2017).
X 35
X Box 2.1. The policy choice of conditionality versus unconditionality
Yet, such conditions have been questioned for a number of reasons, including increased
administration and operational cost of setting and monitoring conditions (potentially
lowering transfer amounts); the risk of failure to meet conditions – particularly when
binding – and how this can accentuate inequalities in certain populations (Standing and
Orton 2018); assumptions that the main deterrent for not accessing a specific services
is economic and not linked to quality, access or adequacy; and the risk of reinforcing
traditional gender roles while adding to women’s unpaid workloads (see for instance
Bastagli et al. 2019; Cookson 2018; Fultz and Francis 2013; Molyneux 2007).
Is the conditionality necessary for cash transfers to have the positive effects they seem to
have, or are unconditional transfers similarly effective?
The answer partly depends on the outcomes of interest. Both types of transfers are found
to yield positive impacts on schooling, health, and nutrition outcomes. Baird et al. (2014)
found that both conditional and unconditional programmes similarly improve enrolment
and attendance, compared to no programme. However, when the set of conditional
transfers is restricted to those that monitor and enforce conditions (as opposed to “soft
conditionalities’’), conditional programmes in some case can contribute to enrolment and
attendance.
The review conducted for this report only identified one study, Fenton et al. (2016), that
compared the effectiveness of conditional and unconditional transfers with respect to
children’s paid employment. Both reduced the time spent by children in paid employment,
with the difference in impact being only marginally statistically significant in favour of
conditions. Considering that school attendance and health monitoring conditions were
soft (after six months of not meeting the conditions households would lose 10 per cent
of the transfers), it is plausible that the same result could have been achieved by simply
integrating messaging in the unconditional transfer without the risks and costs outlined
above.
With this evidence in mind, necessarily, the decision to introduce conditions linked to
human development outcomes (such as health and education) depends on context-specific
considerations and should carefully balance potential advantages and costs, understanding
of drivers and access barriers, in in line with national priorities and should be decided by
local authorities, guided by the set of principles contained in ILO Recommendation No. 202
(see ILO 2013 and 2021d; UNICEF 2016a).
From the review of unconditional and conditional cash transfers a number of design and imple-
mentation findings are evident:
X Adequate transfer amounts are essential to reduce child labour. High transfer size can be associ-
ated with stronger improvements in children’s time allocation (Hiziroglu Aygün et al. 2021). Conversely,
small transfers may yield no impact (Ambler and De Brauw 2019; Canelas and Niño-Zarazúa 2019;
Churchill et al. 2021; Vera Cossio 2019); or only reduce labour intensity but not prevalence (Costa et
al. 2020); or only reduce paid employment, maintaining other key indicators, such as household ex-
penditure on education, unchanged (Dias et al. 2021). Low transfer size may even lead to increases in
child labour, if transfers are insufficient to cover the full cost of schooling (De Hoop et al. 2019), or to
offset the impact of adverse economic shocks (Cepaluni et al. 2022). Ensuring an adequate amount of
benefits commensurate with the specific context can vary between rural and urban areas within the
same country (Prifti et al. 2020). See also the ILO Social Security (Minimum Standards) Convention,
1952 (No. 102).16
X Longer programme duration is associated with stronger reduction in child labour. When benefits
were delivered over longer periods, protective effects were stronger (Cahyadi et al. 2020; Churchill
et al. 2021; Moussa et al. 2022; Salti et al. 2022). This is related to households consolidating poverty
reduction and reaping the returns from productive investments over time, which can further reduce
child labour. Economic security helps families to diminish the pull of child labour as a preventive or
coping strategy. Sustained social protection efforts appear particularly important to address the worst
forms of child labour and keep children out of hazardous work (Edmonds and Shrestha 2014). However,
it is important to monitor programme effects on children’s time allocation also in the short term, to
ensure that long-term gains are not obtained at the cost of higher child labour in the short term.
X Conditionality is not a prerequisite for effectiveness in terms of child labour. The proportion of
studies showing protective effects is similar for conditional and unconditional transfer programmes.
The evidence also shows that associating messaging or labelling to unconditional cash transfers can
improve their effectiveness with respect to child labour outcomes (De Hoop et al. 2018a; Pellerano,
Porreca, and Rosati 2020; Sebastian et al. 2019). Nevertheless, when income shocks occur, condition-
ality may provide an additional incentive to keep children in school and limit their involvement in
economic activities (Fitz and League 2021). The consideration of the potential child labour reduction
effects of an unconditional universal basic income is discussed in box 2.2.
X Programmes designed with a focus on children’s outcomes are more effective in addressing
child labour. As mentioned above, programmes which included messages in support of children’s
education were more effective with respect to child labour outcomes. Moreover, programmes where
the transfer size varied according to the number of children in the household also showed relatively
stronger protective effects. In households receiving cash transfers, even ineligible children experi-
ence reduction in economic activities (Lincove and Parker 2016). Cash transfers proved beneficial for
particularly vulnerable children, including refugees and indigenous children, even when not tailored
specifically for them (Hiziroglu Aygün et al. 2021; Lopez-Calva and Patrinos 2015).
X Service access and quality, as well as comprehensive and effective regulations can boost the
positive effects of cash transfers on child labour. Community-level factors also affect programme
effectiveness in combatting child labour. Cash transfers cannot reach their full impact potential if
public education or health infrastructures are lacking or inadequate. This was for instance the case in
Lebanon, where the increase in school participation following the transfers was limited by insufficient
school capacity (De Hoop et al. 2018b). Insufficient service availability may also discriminate margin-
alized or more vulnerable populations if they have to travel long distances to satisfy programme con-
ditionalities. The national legal framework regulating child labour (such as the age at which children
are legally allowed to work), and necessarily its enforcement, is likely to be an important moderator of
16 https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO::P12100_ILO_CODE:C102.
X 37
programme effects, and should be considered in the design of social protection programmes (Canelas
and Niño-Zarazúa 2019).
Finally, the review showed that the effects of cash transfers depend on child, household and
contextual characteristics, including:
X Large differences in effects by gender and age of the child in the contexts of Ethiopia, Lesotho, and the
United Republic of Tanzania (De Hoop et al. 2020; Prifti et al. 2020; Sebastian et al. 2019). For example,
in the United Republic of Tanzania reductions in paid work outside the household were specific to
older boys, while paid work remained unchanged for younger children and girls (De Hoop et al. 2020).
X Differences in impacts by household composition, such as the number of adults who are able to work,
with children more likely to start working or working longer hours when households include fewer
adults who are able to work (see, for instance, Cepaluni et al. 2022; De Hoop et al. 2020; Edmonds and
Theoharides 2020), and numbers of brothers and sisters, and their ages, with older children benefit-
ting from cash transfers targeted at younger children (Lincove and Parker 2016). The gender of the
household head may also moderate impacts. In Lesotho, girls benefited more in terms of improved
schooling and reduced work in male-headed households, while boys benefited more in female-headed
households (Sebastian et al. 2019).
X Effects also depend on traditional norms on child labour and other harmful practices, such as child
marriage. As described in section on integrated social protection programmes (“Cash plus”) below,
programmes combining cash with sensitization challenging these norms were found to be effective
in reducing child labour, including in its worst forms (see, for example, ICI 2022; Karimli, Rost, and
Ismayilova 2018).
X Box 2.2. The promise of universal basic income: expected impacts and challenges
Recent interest in universal basic income (UBI) has grown in prominence, especially with
calls for an emergency UBI to be implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic (ECLAC 2020;
Gray Molina and Ortiz-Juarez 2020). However, aside from numerous pilot experiments –
and a short-lived UBI in Mongolia and a quasi-UBI in Iran – the UBI has not yet made any
permanent breakthroughs in national policy. Necessarily, evidence of child labour impacts
of UBIs are limited.
A UBI reaching all children and paying adequate benefits could contribute to reducing child
labour by reducing monetary and multidimensional poverty and more – as would also be the
case for comprehensive life-cycle social protection. On the other hand, a modest UBI benefit
may risk spreading resources too thinly across the population, but adequacy brings concerns
about the significant financing requirements of a UBI that is set at an adequate level.
Three pilot UBI programmes conducted in Madhya Pradesh, India (2011 and 2013) shed some
light. The largest of these pilots disbursed a modest UBI for 18 months to approximately
6,000 men, women and children in eight villages, and the results were compared with
12 otherwise similar “control” villages (Davala et al. 2015). After a year of UBI having been
paid, the proportion of children in economic activity was only marginally down. On closer
inspection, it became clear that fewer children were engaged in casual wage labour, and
that they allocated less time to these activities. However, in line with findings elsewhere,
the amount of time devoted to work on family plots or helping out around the home had
increased, yet parents reported, that this type of work was less likely to interfere with
schooling (Standing and Orton 2018).
In-kind transfers
X Key findings
The evidence base on in-kind transfers is limited.

School feeding or take-home rations have meaningful impacts on school enrol-
ment and attendance, hence potentially generating reductions in children’s work.
In difficult times, the conditionality intrinsically attached to school feeding
programmes may be meaningful to keep children in school and away from labour.
The value of the in-kind transfer is an important parameter for programme
effectiveness in reducing and preventing child labour.
In-kind transfers seem to be less effective in fighting child labour compared to
cash transfers of similar amounts, which allow more flexible expenditure.
Operational and logistical difficulties associated with the delivery and monitoring
of in-kind transfers are common and raise concerns about their efficiency.
This review did not identify any study assessing the impact of in-kind transfers
on hazardous labour.
X 39
In-kind transfers cover part of household consumption costs, hence limiting the need to resort to child
labour to afford certain goods, and offer a more limited set of consumption choices. They do not provide
income security to beneficiary households compared to cash transfers. However, they may restrict the
usage of the transfer to the consumption of goods that potentially are complements to (or inputs for)
human development outcomes.
Globally, as cash transfers became easier and less costly to implement through rapid digitalization, they
have gradually supplanted in-kind transfers. They also provide participants with choice to use cash to
meet multiple needs, in addition to food or specific supplies. Nevertheless, in-kind transfers in the form
of school feeding or support to educational costs remain widely implemented and are still expanding in
low- and middle-income countries.
For instance, earlier evidence on in-kind transfers focused on school feeding and take-home rations
programmes in Bangladesh and Burkina Faso, finding modest reductions of children’s involvement in
economic activities and no effect on household chores (ILO 2013).
This review identified four recent studies assessing the impact of in-kind transfers on children’s time
use and schooling, with one study (Tang, Zhao, and Zhao 2020) specifically analysing impacts on child
labour for elimination, and one looking at conflict-affected regions of Mali (Aurino et al. 2019). Results
were mixed and showed that:
X Protective effects of the Free Compulsory Education Reform in China reduced the prevalence of child
labour for elimination (defined in the study as work below the minimum age), although only for boys
(Tang, Zhao, and Zhao 2020). And, in Mexico, the Programa de Apoyo Alimentario reduced the preva-
lence and intensity of children’s participation in economic activities for children in the middle-income
distribution (Tagliati 2019); however, it was the cash transfers (of similar amount) that enabled the
poorest households to reduce children’s participation in economic activities, rather than the food
baskets. The “Rice for the Poor” programme in Indonesia found no impact of the food subsidy on
children’s participation in economic activities (Jayawardana, Baryshnikova, and Pham 2021).
X In conflict-affected regions of Mali, Aurino et al. (2019) found that school feeding was effective in
reducing months spent in farm labour, while generalized food distribution increased participation in
farm work. Effects on girls’ participation in farm work were weaker for generalized food distribution,
while school feeding, on the other hand, led to a large decrease in the time spent on farming and
animal-rearing by girls.
An important consideration with in-kind benefits is the transaction costs that households have to face
when accessing the service. In the case of food subsidies, constraints such as getting to specific stores
on specific days were shown to lead to certain eligible households failing to collect their benefits. Failure
to monitor causes of, and address, low take-up can undermine the efficacy of the benefit, and ultimately
result in children being trapped in or drawn into child labour.
Integrated social protection programmes (“Cash plus”)
X Key findings
Available studies reported mixed effects, depending on the specific

complementary interventions considered.
Combining cash transfers with social health insurance slightly reduced children’s
participation in productive activities.
Combining cash transfers with information campaign on child labour appears a
promising strategy to reduce child labour, including hazardous labour.
Programmes combining cash with livelihood promotion interventions (such
as training and asset transfers) pose risks for children, who may be drawn
into productive activities for the household, including hazardous work. Such
programmes can still reduce child labour, if further combined with sensitization
on children’s rights and the hazards related to child labour.
The amount of the cash transfer, and the intensity of sensitization components,
are key to ensuring protective effects.
Integrated social protection programmes – also referred to as “cash plus” – combine cash transfers with
complementary interventions to simultaneously promote households’ and children’s well-being, including
information on the detrimental effects of child labour or access to services such as health or education.
Acknowledging the mixed evidence on conditionality, service take-up and risk related to household
investment in economic activities, complementary interventions are expected to generate synergies
particularly relevant to address child labour.
Integrated social protection programmes are rapidly expanding in low- and middle-income countries,
including for instance Burkina Faso (Child Sensitive Social Protection Programme, combining cash with
water and sanitation and nutrition services), Ghana (Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty, LEAP,
combining cash with social health insurance), and Mozambique (Child Grant Programme, combining cash
with nutrition behavioural change communication). However, studies examining the child labour impacts
of cash plus programmes are rare.
This review identified 11 studies on integrated social protection programmes. Of these, five were under-
taken in Ghana, and focused on combining cash transfers with social health insurance, and combining
cash with an information campaign on child labour. The other six studies assessed combinations of cash
transfers with livelihood promotion – for instance, productive asset transfers and training on business
activities – which in some cases were also associated with sensitization on child labour. This evidence
shows that:
X Programmes combining cash transfers with social health insurance have the potential to reduce
households’ reliance on child labour as a coping strategy in the face of adverse health needs – including
as a precautionary strategy. However, regularity and adequacy of the cash component remain impor-
tant determinants of programme effectiveness in cash plus approaches. Short-term evaluations of
Ghana’s LEAP programme and its extension (LEAP1000, which also covers households with pregnant
women and children up to two years) and its link with the National Health Insurance, showed limited
impacts on children’s productive activities (Aborigo et al. 2021; Angeles et al. 2017; Handa et al. 2014;
Osei and Lambon-Quayefio 2019). The authors mostly explained the limited impacts based on the
irregularity and small amount of the cash payments (Handa et al. 2014; Angeles et al. 2017; Aborigo
et al. 2018).
X 41
X Programmes combining cash with campaigns or sensitization against child labour specifically
address the risk of children participating in the household expanded productive activities. Such
programmes indeed inform caregivers on the hazards associated with child labour, thus supporting
transfer expenditure on education, and deterring children’s engagement in hazardous work. In Ghana,
International Cocoa Initiative (2022) found that a programme combining unconditional cash transfers
with an information campaign was effective in reducing the prevalence of hazardous work among
children.
X Programmes combining cash with livelihood promotion can help households increase their income
and reduce demand for child labour, but may also increase child labour if additional support is needed
in the newly created businesses. Building on early evidence on this type of programme – which showed
that asset transfers may significantly reduce the protective effects of social protection (ILO 2013) – this
review identified six studies, five of which provided null or negative results. Two studies show that
these programmes did not change children’s participation in economic activities in Brazil and India
(Banerjee et al. 2011; Costa, Helfand, and Souza 2018), three found that children’s participation in
economic activities increased in Bangladesh and the Philippines (Bandiera et al. 2013; Edmonds and
Theoharides 2020; Sulaiman 2015).17 Of the three studies that found increase in general participation
in economic activities, one study also assessed impacts on child labour (see box 1.1) and found that the
programme in the Philippines even increased the prevalence of child labour, despite being designed
with the objective of reducing it (Edmonds and Theoharides 2020). Karimli, Rost, and Ismayilova
2018 study in Burkina Faso was the only positive example, with the authors recording uniquely pro-
tective effects when the cash-plus livelihood promotion programme also included sensitization on
child labour. In this programme, the sensitization component had relatively high intensity (including
monthly sessions for six to eight family members), which likely increased programme effectiveness.
What is clear from the cash-plus evidence is that family context and effective implementation of the “plus”
components matter. The strong and negative effects found in the Philippines by Edmonds and Theoharides
(2020) study were explained by a scarcity of adult labour in recipient households, and potentially by a
lack of awareness of the hazards associated with child labour despite the programme including child
labour orientation sessions (covering the legal definition and explaining how the Government is engaging
communities to reduce child labour). However, in qualitative interviews recipients reported little value
in these sessions and were unaware of the programme objective. In contrast, in Karimli, Rost, and
Ismayilova (2018) study in Burkina Faso, the child labour sensitization component had a higher intensity
and coverage in the family.
17 Bandiera et al. (2013) considers all children in the household, so presumably these includes a mix of younger and older children;
Edmonds and Theoharides (2020) focus on children 12 to 17 years old; and Sulaiman (2015) considers children 6 to 15 years old.
X 2.4 Public employment programmes
X Key findings
Studies found mixed impacts of public employment programmes on children’s

participation in economic activities.
Public employment programmes certainly present risks in terms of child labour,
with older children being likely to increase their participation in productive
activities, to substitute for adults who engage in public employments.
Impacts differ by sex, with girls substituting their mothers in household chores
and boys being more likely to work outside the household, like male adults.
Improving the amount and regularity of payments from public employments can
avoid potential detrimental effects on children’s work.
This review did not identify any study assessing the impact of public employment
programmes on hazardous labour.
Public employment programmes (PEPs) provide a source of employment for adults from poor or chronically
food insecure households, especially during lean seasons, thus (hypothetically) reducing household
demand for child labour as an alternative income source. PEPs can also help to build public infrastructure
and expand basic services, including health and education services, which can further reduce child
labour. However, such programmes may increase children’s engagement in productive activities for the
household, if they take on work at home for adults who engage in PEPs outside the household. Evidence
also suggest that, in some instances, children may also directly participate in PEPs.
Public employment programmes can be key elements of social protection systems, and are common in the
form of active labour market policies, in the most developed systems worldwide. In low- and middle-income
countries, programmes such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme
(NREGS) in India, the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) in Ethiopia or the Expanded Public Works
Programme in South Africa have been implemented over long periods, becoming flagship schemes in
their respective countries. Yet despite PEPs being an important component of social protection systems,
the evidence on these programmes is rather limited, mostly covering NREGS and PSNP.
Building on early evidence, which showed mixed effects of PEPs for child labour reduction by sex, favouring
girls (ILO 2013), this review covers 10 recent studies from Argentina, Ethiopia, India, and Sierra Leone. The
new evidence is also mixed, with four studies showing protective effects, four reporting adverse impacts,
one reporting mixed effects, and one study reporting no impacts. In summary:
X Three studies of Ethiopia’s PSNP showed reduced children’s participation in economic activities, espe-
cially for older children (Dinku 2019; Behrane et al. 2017; Porter and Goyal 2016). A similar pattern was
found for Argentina’s Programa Jefes y Jefas de Hogar Desocupados (Juras 2014). Another PSNP study
by Belete (2021) reported mixed results, explained by changes made to indicators used by the study
(see Guilbert et al. forthcoming).
X Three studies of India’s NREGS all reported increased children’s participation in economic activities
(Ajefu and Abiona 2019; Li and Sekhri 2020; Shah and Steinberg 2021). Shah and Steinberg (2021) found
that among adolescents, girls were more likely to substitute for their mothers in household chores,
while boys were more likely to work outside the home for pay.
X 43
X Rosas and Sabarwal (2016) found that Sierra Leone’s Youth Employment Support Project (YESP) did not
affect children’s involvement in paid activities, but increased school absenteeism, which may indicate
child labour substituting for the household chores previously managed by adults before their partici-
pation in the programme (Dammert et al. 2018).
Importantly for the implementation of future programmes, the evidence suggests that the timing of
PEPs – together with the amount and regularity of payments – are important determinants of child labour
impacts. For instance, when PEPs offer employment during the high agricultural season, children are
more likely to substitute for adult farm work, both within and outside the household (Ajefu and Abiona
2019). Moreover, larger and more regular payments can improve programme impacts, further reducing
the prevalence of working children, school attendance, and highest grade completed (Berhane et al. 2017).
X 2.5 Unemployment protection
X Key findings
No recent studies were found detailing the impact of unemployment protection

on child labour.
In households without unemployment protection, when adults lose their job they
can be forced to rely on children’s labour as an alternative income source.
Having the income replacement function that unemployment protection provides
would in all likelihood diminish the need for households to resort to child labour.
Research is required to gauge a potential relationship between unemployment
protection and child labour.
The link between unemployment and child labour risk is clear, as are the implications of low levels of labour
market formalization. When an adult member of the household loses his or her job, in the absence of
unemployment protection the household can be forced to rely on children’s labour as a coping strategy.
This review did not identify any study investigating direct links between unemployment protection
schemes or related statutory income support programmes and child labour. However, previous evidence
from the ILO (2013) report regarding Argentina, Brazil, the United Republic of Tanzania and Togo suggests
that, where unemployment protection is absent, households can be forced to rely on children’s labour
to cover lost employment income. The clear implication is that unemployment protection has a role to
play in efforts against child labour, by providing at least partial income replacement and enabling the
beneficiary to maintain a certain level of household consumption until new employment is available and
thereby removing the need to rely on the income of working children.
X 2.6 Income security in old age
X Key findings
Generally, most of the evidence shows that children living in households with an
old-age pension recipient are less likely to work.
These positive impacts appear to be age-sensitive (older children), with the sex
of the pension recipient (female) influential in some contexts.
Old age pensions also improve child literacy and school enrolment, and proved
to reduce hazardous work, although there is evidence on this form of child labour
only from one study.
The evidence is predominantly from Latin America and rural populations. Hence,
more research is needed from diverse low- and middle-income countries and
urban settings.
Old age is a source of vulnerability as people lose their income-earning ability, experience deteriorated
health and are at greater risk of poverty. In multigenerational households,18 or split-generation households,
income security in old age can play a key role in the economic security of the household as a whole,
including its youngest members. Old-age pensions can provide this income security and potentially
affect child labour.
Building on early evidence from South Africa that showed that old-age pensions can reduce child labour
overall and improve school enrolment among girls (Edmonds 2006), the review uncovered examples from
both means-tested/targeted and universal approaches:
X In Brazil, a non-contributory means-tested pension reduced the labour force participation of children
aged 10 to 15 years (De Oliveira, Kassouf, and de Aquino 2017). Another study in Brazil found that an
old-age pension scheme for rural workers reduced participation in work for pay and hours worked
among girls living with a female beneficiary (De Carvalho Filho 2012).19 In Mexico, a non-contributory
rural pension scheme (now discontinued) decreased the labour force participation of adolescent boys
aged 12 to 17 from the poorest households, who were living with a female beneficiary (Juarez and
Pfutze 2015).
X Evidence from universal schemes is inconclusive. In Thailand, a universal old-age pension scheme
reduced informal agricultural work (girls) and in formal non-agricultural work (boys) among children
aged 12 to 18 years (Herrmann, Leckcivilize, and Zenker 2021). In Bolivia, a universal pension reduced
the likelihood of work among boys in rural households (Chong and Yáñez-Pagans 2019).
18 As of 2010, the prevalence of households including both children under 15 and an older person aged 60 years or above amounted
to 13 and 14 per cent in Asia and Africa, respectively, while it was lower at 8 per cent in Latin America. At the country level, the
prevalence of such intergenerational households ranged from 5 per cent in Argentina to 37 percent in Senegal (UNDESA 2017).
19 Only hours above 15 per week are recorded, so results indicate that the programme reduced hazardous work in the form of long
hours.
X 45
X 2.7 Social protection for people with disabilities
X Key findings
No recent studies were found detailing the impact of disability protection on child
labour.
Research is required to gauge a potential relationship between disability
protection and child labour.
Cross-country evidence shows that the socio-economic vulnerabilities associated
with disabilities can increase household reliance on child labour.
Nonetheless, a wide array of social protection measures can be taken to address
the vulnerabilities accompanying both short-term and long-term disabilities.
Households with people with disabilities are among the most economically and socially vulnerable, and
many of them are among the poorest of the poor. Disability can compromise the ability to work and
earn income; and at the same time people with disabilities face added costs for medical expenses and
equipment. Other household members may also have to forgo paid work in order to care for the disabled
person. In addition to economic vulnerability, people with disabilities suffer other “hidden” challenges,
among them discrimination and various forms of social exclusion. For children with disabilities, social
exclusion can take the form of denied education and seclusion within the home. Not surprisingly, in
developing countries, the multidimensional poverty rate for households with disabled children is much
higher than for other households (UNICEF 2021).
All in all, increased risks of poverty and vulnerability in households with a person with a disability can
push children into work, which is reflected in substantial literature associating disability and child labour.
The ILO (2013) report containing studies from Bangladesh, Nepal and Gansu Province, China, have found
that children in households where adults are sick or disabled or have missed work are more likely to be in
child labour within or outside the household. Another study from Nepal found evidence suggesting that
parental disability was strongly associated with the likelihood of children ending up working as porters
and ragpickers – both among worst forms of child labour entailing significant physical and psycho-social
risks (Edmonds 2010). Children with disabilities may be engaged in some of the worst forms of child labour,
such as begging (Groce, Loeb and Murray 2014; UNICEF 2022a).
There is a wide array of social protection measures that can be taken to address the vulnerabilities
accompanying both short-term and long-term disabilities. These include contributory and non-contrib-
utory disability benefits; wage replacement for disabling injuries and illnesses; and free or subsidized
access to assistive devices, public transport, housing, and other provisions; as well as support services
complemented by a range of high-quality public services (ILO 2021d). Research is, however, lacking, and
efforts need to be made to identify the specific impact of such measures against child labour among
disabled children or children in households with disabled members.
X 2.8 Social health protection
X Key findings
The evidence review focused on social health insurance. There is a need to

investigate further the impact of broader social health protection policies, in
particular social assistance programmes that guarantee free or affordable health
interventions for maternity and early childhood development and programmes
guaranteeing free health care for children.
The new studies generally confirmed earlier findings showing that children living
in households covered by social health insurance are less likely to experience
child labour and positive effects on schooling were also found.
Social health protection was found to have ex-ante impacts, reducing child labour
among protected households even when they do not experience health shocks.
Catastrophic health expenses can compel households to sell assets and rely on
children’s labour to cope.
Social health protection can shield households from resorting to child labour by
eliminating or reducing out of pocket expenses on health and improving health
outcomes.
Social health protection also proved to be effective in reducing hazardous child
labour.
Universal health coverage and universal social protection can sometimes, erroneously, be thought of as
separate entities undermining the obvious interlinkages. In reality, effective health systems distribute
and redistribute resources forming a key part of the social protection floor, while other dimensions of
social protection systems can impact on the social determinants of health, which in turn can influence
the drivers of child labour (ILO 2020d).
Social health protection is a necessary form of social protection against poverty and vulnerability. Without
social health protection, injuries, diseases, premature death or even pregnancy and child birth can place
economic pressure on households in two ways: by reducing the earning capacity of individuals for some
time and by imposing added, unforeseen, health-care costs on the household budget. Universal social
health protection is not yet a reality for all. While over 60 per cent of the global population is protected
by a scheme, this proportion is only 34 and 16 per cent in middle-income countries and low-income
countries, respectively (ILO 2021d).
As with other in-kind services, additional barriers to accessing healthcare also remain in the form of
informal payments on health services, physical distance, limitations in the range, quality and acceptability
of health services, and long waiting times, as well as opportunity costs such as lost working time (ILO
2021d). In 2015, 930 million people worldwide incurred catastrophic health spending (defined as OOP
expenditures exceeding 10 per cent of total yearly household consumption or income), creating a major
poverty risk (WHO and World Bank 2020) and raising the risk of coping through child labour. There is an
increasing body of evidence confirming that even relatively small health spending periodically required on
a regular basis have impoverishing impacts, and not only big health shocks. This calls for comprehensive
social health protection with a strong focus on primary health care (ILO 2021d).
X 47
There is earlier evidence of a lower reliance on child labour in households with social health insurance
in Guatemala and Pakistan (ILO 2013), and in Kenyan households accessing essential health services for
antiretroviral treatment for HIV-positive household members (Thirumurthy, Graff Zivin, and Goldstein
2008). New evidence from China, Ghana, Pakistan and Rwanda shows that social health insurance has
contributed to reduced child labour and increased schooling. More specifically:
X Access to China’s New Cooperative Medical Scheme (NCMS) completely offsets the adverse effects of
health shocks in terms of decreased school enrolment and increased child work prevalence (Liu 2016).
X Ghana’s National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) significantly reduced the incidence of child labour
(by 8 percentage points or 22 per cent) among households with more episodes of illness, and reduced
hours of weekly household chores overall. In households experiencing more episodes of illness, there
was a greater positive impact on boys’ school attendance and a greater reduction in girls’ engagement
in child labour and household chores (Garcia-Mandico, Reichert, and Strupat 2021).
X Through providing microfinance services and mandatory social health insurance to cover accident
and health risks of all affiliated persons and their dependants, Pakistan’s National Rural Support
Programme (NRSP) is associated with decreased children’s engagement in hazardous work by 4 per-
centage points, and child labour earnings by about 125 rupees/month. Impacts were larger for boys
and fewer days of schooling missed were overall (Landmann and Frölich 2015).
X Rwanda’s Community-Based Health Insurance (CBHI) social health insurance scheme is associated
with children working less (on average one hour less per week) and better educational outcomes for
children. While work intensity declined only for boys, schooling outcomes improved for both boys and
girls, with stronger impacts for girls. The authors suggest that the social health insurance scheme
reduced the need for precautionary savings to cover expenses on health, and consequently encour-
aged investments in education and discouraged child labour (Strobl 2017). Altogether, the CBHI social
health insurance scheme was found to protect children from increasing their participation in market
work and family businesses when their parents are experiencing a health shock (Woode, Bousmah,
and Boucekkine 2017).
This review of evidence focused on social health insurance and there is a need to investigate further the
impact of a wider breadth of social health protection policies. In particular, social assistance programmes
that guarantee free or affordable maternity and new-born care and/or access to health care without
hardship for children under a certain age threshold may have impacts on child labour within concerned
households. Those programmes are increasingly being developed in sub-Saharan Africa. However, it is
unclear the extent to which the impact would be as significant as social health protection programmes
covering the entire household. Indeed, in some of those programmes the age threshold for health care
without hardship is as low as 5 years old, leaving most of childhood out of the scope of such protection.
49
X 3.
Where next
for social protection
and child labour?
X 3.1 Building social protection systems

for children: Turning promises and plans
into reality and action, now
The evidence underscores the inextricable link between social protection and children’s right to freedom
from child labour. While social protection instruments directed at families with children appear especially
pertinent to combatting child labour, the evidence also points to a clear role of other social protection
instruments across the lifecycle, and their combined power to reduce the drivers of child labour through
a system-wide approach. In essence, the eradication of child labour now relies on effective schemes to
withdraw children from child labour, while at the same time strengthening social protection systems,
education, and decent work opportunities for parents and caregivers to address the conditions that drive
child labour risks in the future. Moreover, a systemic approach has the added benefit of achieving multiple
rights and well-being goals for all children, including their rights to social security, health, education, and
an adequate standard of living.
Accelerating progress in strengthening social protection systems, in particular by extending coverage
and improving the comprehensiveness and adequacy of benefits and services, means moving beyond
promises and commitments to immediate action. In that vein, several policy actions stand out as priorities
for eliminating child labour, so that all children have access to social protection.
Close the yawning gap in the coverage of social protection for children. That in the third decade of
the twenty-first century the vast majority of children – 1.5 billion children aged 0-14, many of whom are
children in child labour – still receive no child and family cash benefits at all is a moral, social, and economic
catastrophe. Under these conditions, children must labour, or go hungry and miss out on schooling,
and communities and countries suffer from the unrealised potential in the form of squandered lives and
enormous social costs (lost capabilities, productivity, and prosperity, among others). Increasing coverage
of inclusive child and family benefits, means at the very least formalization and adequate finance, and
to accomplish this, policymakers can:
X Harness synergies to make a concerted effort to extend social protection to the two billion
informal economy workers to contribute to a reduction of child labour and to facilitate their
transition to the formal economy. This is critical given that child labour is concentrated in in-
formal economy settings where adult workers – the children’s caregivers – have little or no access
to social protection, and are largely excluded from work-related protection and tax-financed social
assistance. Extending social protection to workers in the informal economy, especially in informal
agricultural contexts, is key to realizing decent work, facilitating workers’ transition to the formal
economy, and reducing vulnerabilities that create the need to turn to child labour. Formalization is
a critical step in sustainable tax and transfer systems.
X Closing the protection gap requires filling the “financing gap”, by considering a diversity of
mechanisms and ensuring that sustainable and equitable financing is a matter of priority.
Protection gaps are associated with significant underinvestment in social protection. Currently,
low- and middle-income countries spend a woefully low amount of GDP on social protection for
children. This must, and can, increase. Approximately US$19 trillion was mobilized in the global
fiscal stimulus-response to the pandemic, while in comparison US$77.9 billion per year would
be required to ensure a social protection floor in LIC countries (ILO 2020b; Duran Valverde et al.
2020). This will require countries to reinforce existing sources of financing and identify new and
innovative ones too. International experience shows that countries can draw on various strategies
to create fiscal space (Bierbaum and Schmitt 2022), and the pandemic has shown that increasing
the effective coverage, comprehensiveness and adequacy of provision is possible, both practically,
and fiscally. Doing this will have a substantial impact on child labour and child well-being, and is in line
with international obligations (ODI and UNICEF 2020; Ortiz et al. 2017 and 2019). The 2021 International
Labour Conference called for investment in social protection to help eliminate child labour (ILO 2021b,
para. 13(h)). Efforts to close the financing gap should progressively secure domestic financing, if
necessary supplemented by international support. This would also require closer coordination in
international and national public financing and debt management.
X As social protection systems are expanded, it is crucial to ensure adequacy, inclusion and
gender transformation, and that they address climate-related and conflict-related risks. The pandemic
has highlighted the fact that, while the poorest and most vulnerable groups and communities experi-
ence the worst impacts of such shocks, they are the least adequately covered by social protection. To
remedy this situation, inclusive policies and programmes must be developed, with particular attention
being paid to the needs of children in child labour, girls and women, children with disabilities, migrant
children and those in other marginalized groups. Significant work is also needed to ensure that social
protection programmes are responsive to shocks, to avert adverse impacts on the incidence of child
labour. The measures deployed during the policy window provided by COVID‑19 can and should also
be built on to prioritize investments to close critical gaps (ILO 2021d).
X As systems are strengthened, countries should rapidly move towards universal social protection
for children. The response to the COVID‑19 pandemic has both emphasized the importance of strong
social protection systems and the opportunity the crisis provided to make progress on universal social
protection for children. This can be achieved initially through quasi-universal or universal child benefits
(UCBs). Evidence from countries with long-established universal child benefits demonstrates that they
help to achieve greater poverty reduction than means-tested benefits. Moreover, in countries cur-
rently without UCBs, simulations show that a UCB scheme costing just 1 per cent of GDP would reduce
child poverty rates by as much as 20 per cent (ILO and UNICEF 2019; ODI and UNICEF 2020). This
has significant implications for child labour, which alone is good reason for policymakers to consider
a UCB.
Policymakers should be cognizant that countries do not build social protection systems after they
develop; they build social protection systems as part of development. Failure to build and invest in
social protection systems for children is irrational for any society that wishes to enjoy the prosperity that
comes with development. Investing in social protection not only assures children’s rights; it plays a critical
role in the virtuous cycle of development, part of which involves transitioning to more formal work; and
a strengthening of tax and transfer systems that reduce vulnerability and enable additional investments
in human capabilities, national infrastructure and other conditions that are conducive to the elimination
of child labour and more. The most effective social protection systems for addressing child labour and
its root causes are integrated systems, which are well coordinated internally and cross-sectorally. For
these reasons:
X A systems approach from a child labour perspective should focus on how specific social pro-
tection instruments can complement one another in addressing contingencies rendering
households vulnerable to child labour. Figure 3.1, based on the evidence presented in Section 2,
illustrates the interaction of challenges and instruments within a social protection system and how it
3. Where next for social protection and child labour?
X 51
can be constructed to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of social protection responses to child
labour. There is no “one size fits all” solution in terms of social protection systems. Instead, the specific
mix of interventions will necessarily depend on context, the specific challenges being addressed and
a variety of other factors. Such an approach is fully in line with ILO Recommendation No. 202, which
emphasizes national ownership and the importance of national strategies for social protection exten-
sion formulated through social dialogue.
X Figure 3.1 Elements of an integrated social protection system for addressing child labour
Challenges rendering households vulnerable to reliance on child labour
high costs of schooling

Lack of school access,
General poverty and
Long-term disability
associated with old

Income insecurity
Individual shocks
Injury and illness

Collective shocks
vulnerability
Job loss
age
Benefits to children
Cash transfers
and families
In-kind transfers
'"Cash plus" programmes
Quasi-universal or universal child benefits

Social protection instruments
Public employment programmes
Unemployment protection
Maternity protection
Other benefit categories
Old-age pensions
Disability protection
Social health protection
Sickness benefits
Employment injury compensation
Survivors benefits
Universal basic income
Evidence of child labour reduction impact exists
Despite lack of child labour studies, high probability of a protective impact on child labour
No identified impact
X Moreover, it is of tremendous importance that policymakers recognize and implement inte-

grated cross-sectoral social provision for children, with a key role for social protection sys-
tems. Specifically, this means the role of child and family benefits that directly address the financial
barriers that impede the realization of children’s rights, and their access to key human services that
protect them from child labour and promote their rights such as health and education. In this way,
well-designed social protection can “oil the wheels’ of social provision and much-needed structural
transformation. To develop an integrated systems approach means the coordination of the design and
implementation of childcare and education services, child protection services, access to healthcare
without hardship and more.
Finally, in support of system building efforts, policymakers can utilize existing international policy
commitments to universal social protection, further building consensus for action. Pre-existing
commitments and policy frameworks, such as the Sustainable Development Agenda and Goals (SDGs)
and the strong tripartite policy consensus agreed by the International Labour Conference represent
such a possibility. Within the SDG Agenda, if Alliance 8.7 and the Global Partnership for Universal Social
Protection to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (USP2030) could join their forces to promote
universal social protection for eradicating child labour, this could be an important vehicle to advance this
effort and support Member States.
The UN Secretary General’s Common Agenda and the 2021 launch of the Global Accelerator for Jobs and
Social Protection for Just Transitions offers tremendous potential to realize the right to social protection
for all. The Accelerator is a UN system-wide initiative capable of developing an integrated policy response
that aims at helping lower-income countries to create at least 400 million decent jobs and extend social
protection to four billion people. If this initiative realises its potential, it could help ensure that more
children live their lives free from child labour, enjoying social protection and with their caregivers working
in decent formal jobs.
X 3.2 Designing social protection programmes

that prevent and reduce child labour:
What does the evidence say?
To complement Section 3.1 on recommendations for the social protection system that can best address
child labour concerns, this section offers specific recommendations on the design of social protection
schemes.
The evidence in this report has uncovered multiple promising practices for the design of social protection
schemes for preventing and reducing child labour. Programmes which applied these practices had stronger
reduction impacts on child labour, including its worst forms. These include the following:
Inclusive universal social protection programmes are more likely to reduce child labour. Well-
designed schemes can increase prospective entitlement holders’ take-up of benefits by limiting exclusion
errors (see Grosh et al. 2022; Kidd, Gelders, and Bailey-Athias 2017), ensuring ease of access to benefits and
reducing stigma and shame, as well as reducing procedural complexity and thereby lowering transaction
and opportunity costs. And so, policymaker should consider:
X Lowering the administrative burden on the system and households, which can increase the risk of
exclusion for those most in need, by prioritizing categorical targeting where possible, and where this
is not the case, by improving means-testing or other targeting mechanisms, and ensuring that these
processes are transparent, rights-based and as unintrusive as possible.20 Universal programmes have
much lower procedural complexity for rights holders to access benefits. A UCB for example requires
certification just once through the birth registration of a child. Poverty-targeted programmes require
frequent (re)certification of eligibility to avoid exclusion errors; however, high-frequency recertification
significantly raises administrative costs (Grosh et al. 2022). Savings in administrative costs therefore
leaves more money available for benefits.
X Avoid using problematic design features such as hard, even punitive, conditionality in programmes
design.
20 An ILO appraisal concludes that the universal schemes reviewed exhibited the lowest average administration cost at
2.5 per cent of the total programme costs, whereas targeted programmes had an average administration cost of 11 per cent (Ortiz
et al. 2017).
3. Where next for social protection and child labour?
X 53
X Strive to implement programmes that are as inclusive as possible, prioritizing universal and uncon-
ditional programmes that cover all households with children irrespective of income status. Such an
inclusive design has critical implications for children in child labour and increases their opportunity to
access entitlements.
Social protection programmes should be child-sensitive, and designed considering the potential
implications in terms of child labour. The evidence clearly shows that programmes which increase
household income (such as cash transfers), while serving an essential poverty reduction goal, may risk an
increase in child labour, if children participate in the household’s expanded productive activities. A similar
concern is associated with livelihood promotion programmes (such as cash combined with productive
assets). To avoid such unintended effects on child labour and to boost protective impacts, it is important
to incorporate child labour concerns in the design of the programme, such as:
X Adding sensitization or provision of information on hazards related to child labour, through regular
monthly sessions with multiple household members to raise awareness on child protection issues,
including hazardous child labour, labour-related child separation, and early and forced marriage.
X Adding “messaging” on the relevance of education, as this is also associated with better child labour
and schooling outcomes from unconditional transfers.
Adequacy and predictability of social protection benefits is key for protective impacts on child
labour. Programmes delivering higher transfer amounts determined stronger reductions in children’s
work, while adverse or minor impacts on child labour are often attributed to low amounts. Therefore, to
improve the impact of social protection on child labour, policymakers should consider:
X Setting adequate benefit levels, taking into account household size and composition to better address
household needs in line with international social security standards.21
X Adapting transfer amounts according to contexts such as local prices and wages, whilst accounting for
opportunity costs (foregone earnings) of schooling, including between rural and urban settings. This
could be informed by community-based participatory research including with children and families
which is needed to understand their basic needs and related costs.
X Regularly revising transfer amounts to account for inflation.
X Ensuring that social protection payments are provided regularly, as household decisions on child
labour and schooling depend on income stability.
Combining social protection programmes with complementary interventions in the education and
health sectors, as these are particularly effective in reducing child labour. Key recommendations include:
X Combining education supply-side interventions (such as better access to school or improved teaching
approaches) with cash transfers to boost programme effectiveness in reducing child labour and
improving schooling outcomes. Indeed, wherever education facilities are missing or of low quality,
households lack sufficient incentives to remove children from work and send them to school.
X Public service supply is particularly relevant in humanitarian settings, where a large influx of refugees
can generate sudden increases in the local demand for services.
X Other options include the provision of childcare services on public works sites to support households,
and specifically women, in taking up employment without relying on children (most frequently girls)
to substitute them in the care of younger children.
21 International social security standards provide guidance on transfer size. The ILO Social Protection Floors Recommendation,
2012 (No. 202) sets out that basic income security should allow life in dignity, and that nationally defined minimum levels of
income should correspond to a set of necessary goods and services, national poverty lines or comparable thresholds (para. 8).
ILO Convention No. 102 (Part VII) sets minimum standards for the provision of family (or child) benefits in the form of a periodic cash
benefit, benefits in kind (such as food, clothing, housing) or a combination of both.
X Securing universal social health protection coverage for children and engaging with the health system
to secure the availability of quality health services adapted to children and available near home and
school is also paramount.
Finally, as work continues in the fight against child labour – including the compounding effects of
COVID-19 – more research is needed to build an adequate evidence base to guide and inform policy.
Evidence is needed both on the economic and social challenges rendering households vulnerable to child
labour, and on the effectiveness of a range of social protection instruments, and their combined effects, in
addressing these challenges. It is especially relevant to expand the evidence base on impacts on hazardous
child labour and other worst forms of child labour. This report has made clear that desirable outcomes
in terms of child labour are by no means automatic in the case of many social protection instruments:
this means that solid evidence of which approaches work in which circumstances, and why, is especially
important in addressing the continued scourge of child labour.
The eradication of child labour is not only a moral priority, but clearly an achievable goal provided both
political will and resources are in place. The evidence suggests that social protection can play a critical
role in achieving these ends.
55
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The Role of Social Protection in The Elimination of Child Labour

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ISBN: 978-92-2-036952-4 (Web PDF)

Guy Ryder Catherine Russell

1. Trends in child labour and social protection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

3. Where next for social protection and child labour?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

1.1 Defining child labour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Acronyms and abbreviations

Child labour is at a crossroads

X Strong social protection systems

X Design features of social protection policies matter

What’s in this report?

X 1.1 Child labour

Number of children in hazardous work Number of children in child labour

Prevalence of child labour Prevalence of hazardous work

Source: ILO and UNICEF (2021).

X Box 1.1. Defining child labour

Number of children in child labour Prevalence of child labour

Source: ILO and UNICEF (2021).

Prevalence of child labour since the COVID-19 pandemic

X 1.2 Social protection

X Box 1.2. The numbers at a glance: The absence of social protection

X 1.5 billion children aged 0-14

X 71 million mothers with newborns

One third of the working-age population

X 179 million unemployed persons

X 150 million persons with disabilities

X 164 million older persons

X 2.7 billion people

Source: ILO (2021d); World Social Protection Data Dashboards.

X Figure 1.3 Effective social protection coverage (SDG indicator 1.3.1),

Latin America and the Caribbean

Covered by at least one

Covered by at least one

Asia and the Pacific

Covered by at least one

Covered by at least one

Latin America and the Caribbean

Total expenditure on social protection

Health expenditure 3.9

Total expenditure on social protection

Health expenditure 2.0

Asia and the Pacific

Total expenditure on social protection

Health expenditure 4.0

Total expenditure on social protection

Health expenditure 5.8

X Box 1.3. Conceptualizing universal social protection

Social protection during the COVID-19 pandemic

Income group Spending (billion US $) Average US $ per capita % of GDP

HIC 2,575 716 2.1

LIC 5.7 8 1.3

LMIC 94.6 45 1.7

UMIC 324.3 145 2.5

Source: Gentilini et al. (2022).

XBox 1.4. Utilizing existing child benefits for a child-focused pandemic response

Source: Bastagli et al. (2022).

X 1.3 Social protection and child labour

9 A similar pattern is observed for hazardous work (figure not reported).

X 2.2 Overview of the evidence base

X Box 1.2. The numbers at a glance: The absence of social protection

X 1.5 billion children aged 0-14

X 71 million mothers with newborns

One third of the working-age population

X 179 million unemployed persons

X 150 million persons with disabilities

X 164 million older persons

X 2.7 billion people

X Box 1.3. Conceptualizing universal social protection

XBox 1.4. Utilizing existing child benefits for a child-focused pandemic response

X 1.3 Social protection and child labour

X 2.3 Transfer programmes directed

X 3.1 Building social protection systems

X 3.2 Designing social protection programmes