Language in India www.languageinindia.com ISSN 1930-2940 17:1 January 2017 Khizar Hayat Qamar Socio-Economic Factors Leading Towards Child Labour: A Comparative Study in Punjab, Pakistan 109 =================================================================== Language in India www.languageinindia.comISSN 1930-2940 Vol. 17:1 January 2017 =================================================================== Socio-Economic Factors Leading Towards Child Labour: A Comparative Study in Punjab, Pakistan Khizar Hayat Qamar (M. Phil) Lecturer Sociology University of Sargodha, Sub Campus Mandi Bahauddin, Punjab Pakistan Muhammad Shoaib, (M. Phil Scholar) ========================================================================= Abstract Child labor is a serious social issue of the present era especially in the developing countries like Pakistan. Majority of the children in Pakistan are still working at hotels, tea-stalls, factories and brick-kilns and they are forced to earn money in order to fulfill the needs of the family or add to the income of the family. They are living in a miserable plight and pity condition. They have to work for long hours which affect their health. The number of child laborers in our country is about 12 million. The present study was carried out in two districts (Mandi Bahauddin& Faisalabad) of Punjab. The main objective of the study was to explore various socio-economic factors paving the way for child labor in society. The universe of the present study was the city areas and suburbs of district Faisalabad & Mandi Bahauddin consisting hotels, workshops, tea-stalls and brick-kilns. Multistage sampling technique was used for the present study. At first stage, two districts (Faisalabad & Mandi Bahauddin) of Punjab province were randomly selected. At the second stage, city areas of these two districts were selected randomly for the selection of sample. At the third stage, a sample of 200 respondents (100 from each district) who were doing labor and working at hotels, workshops, tea-stalls and brick-kilns of the city areas was taken through convenient sampling. The data were collected by designing a well-structured interview schedule. The collected data were analyzed by Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The results of the study showed that majority of the respondents were doing labor due to poverty and to support the family income. The other major reason of their labor was parents’ illiteracy. Their main problem was long working hours and continue work schedule which had bad and serious physical and metal effects on their health.