ABSTRACT
This chapter develops a labor market model for children in order to examine the conflicting explanations for increase in child labor during Industrial Revolution. Although historical analysis provides only the ex-post result of family's decision-making process, the collective model allows authors to conjecture what sorts of preferences existed ex-ante in the family. The labor market model will be used to access whether child labor legislation and mandatory schooling laws effectively decreased the supply of child labor. The employment decision is made in a family context where household decision-making about whether children should work in the market, work in the home, attend school or enjoy leisure is a collective process. The labor laws of 1833, 1844, 1847 and 1850 were turning points in the history of government regulation of the employer/employee relationship as it pertained to the child laborer. The increase in the number of child laborers, moreover, could not be explained by an increase in the supply of child labor.
