Child Participation in Labor Market, Individual and Environmental Determinants

The phenomenon of child labor and street children is one of the pressing issues in most contemporary large cities around the world. the prevalence of this phenomenon has become so significant that it engages both developed and developing societies equally. child labor refers to any form of employing children in activities that are mentally, physically, socially, or ethically hazardous and deprive them of their childhood and continuous participation in education. in this study, an attempt was made to present an overview of the situation of these children in iran using available data related to child labor (microdata from the labor force survey conducted between the years 2016 to 2020 has been used). subsequently, by applying logistic regression, the individual and household factors influencing child labor were examined. in the overall model, migration (both international and domestic), lack of education among household heads, and rural living were identified as the most significant environmental factors contributing to child labor participation. in urban areas, the most influential environmental factors affecting child participation, in order of importance, were migration (both international and domestic) and household head unemployment. in rural areas, the key environmental variables increasing child participation included the education level of the household head, migration, and household head unemployment. analyzing urban and rural patterns separately, while avoiding aggregation errors from the overall model, underscores the high impact of economic factors on child labor.