Educational Attainment And Child Labor Status Among Disabled Children In Tamil Nadu, India

Disabled children aged between 5–14 years replicate a double burden of vulnerabilities since they form a considerable part of the dependent population and are precluded from the activities of a normal life. The inextricable linkage between poverty and disability forces the disabled children to participate the labor market as child labor instead of attaining elementary education. This further makes it impossible for them to enter into mainstream economic activities. The accessibility of education and status of employment as child labor for them varies across different types of impairment and various socioeconomic indicators. In this backdrop, the objective of our present study is subsequently two-fold. Firstly, it investigates the discrepancy in educational attainment and child labor status of disabled children in Tamil Nadu across type of disability and various socio-economic indicators. Secondly, it examines the impact of Tamil Nadu Disabled Persons Act, 2007 on the educational status of the mentally disabled children. The 2011 Census has been used and multinomial logit model is applied to analyze the first objective. For policy evaluation, the 2001 and 2011 Census have been utilized and difference-in-difference (DID) framework in non-linear model is employed. Orissa is considered as our control state in DID framework. Our results show physically and mentally disabled children are more likely to attend educational institutions and participate less in child labor force as compared to children with multiple disabilities. Urban disabled children have higher chances of attending schools and are less likely to drop out compared to their rural counterparts. There is no significant difference across gender in workforce participation of disabled children, but in case of attaining education, male disabled children are more likely to attend educational institutions than their female counterparts. Also, disabled children who have never been married are less likely to work as child labor. The Disabled Persons Act, 2007 is found to have insignificant impact on educational attainment of mentally disabled children. Both national and state level need to be reprioritized to protect disabled children from exploitations like child labor and child marriage and to include them in the mainstream education.