Children’s Domestic Work: Children Speak Out for Themselves

The book Children’s Domestic Work brings out a sociological study of children’s work in Indian families which is based on the research carried out in Coventry (UK and Lucknow (India). The book questions the assumptions of the existing literature on children’s work in the family, where it is considered as a useful and beneficial task, and something that children ought to learn. Contrary to the dominant understanding on domestic work which marginalizes the importance of children’s work in the family, the evidence presented in this book demonstrates that children’s work in the family is a specific part of their agency, which helps them to construct and reconstruct their own childhood and maintain their family’s social order. Most importantly the book locates children’s domestic work within the current debate of child labour in the light of children’s agency and structure. This book is useful for academics and researchers that encourage the evaluation of children’s work from children’s perspective. It will be of immense interest of scholars and researchers in the area of childhood studies and child labour studies across the various disciplines of social sciences.