The decline of child labour: labour markets and family economies in Europe and North America since 1830

This survey of the ‘adulting’ of national and family economies argues that understanding of the segmentation of labour markets and of the male breadwinner has been impoverished by a failure to consider age alongside gender, and that we are at best in a situation where contextualized studies may provide some insight into reasons for the decline of child labour. With respect to family economies, there has been very little study of the timing or cause of the diminution of children’s contributions, or of how, if at all, that decline is related to the rise in married women’s participation in the labour force.