This thesis examines child labour and schooling in Portugal from a historical and contemporary perspective and comprises three essays. Throughout the thesis, I attempt to strike a balance between research of the local context and a comparison with an international context. The first essay provides an analysis of the evolution of child labour in Portugal. The essay is based on two different sources of information: qualitative — that is, reports by education and labour inspectors, conference proceedings of jurists and lawyers and parliamentary proceedings; quantitative — that is, relying on industrial, labour and household surveys conducted during the 19th and 20th centuries. Child labour was widespread up to mid-20th century, but started declining thereafter, accelerating in the 1960s and particularly in the 1980s. My analysis suggests that the changing needs of the economic structure of the country reduced the interest in children’s work and was in turn reflected in the norms and values espoused by its political leaders and their willingness to pass and implement legal measures. The results suggest that the transfer of affordable (or even free) labour-saving technology to developing countries may curb the demand for child labour. In spite of the long-term decline in child labour, at the turn of the millennium, 8-12 per cent of Portuguese children aged 6-15 could still be classified as working. The second essay studies the patterns of present-day child labour in Portugal and distinguishes between the effects of economic and domestic work on children’s educational performance. Distinguishing between labour types is important from a policy perspective as it helps in the construction of tailor-made solutions. I use an instrumental variables approach to address the simultaneous determination of school success and child labour. I find that economic work hinders educational success, while domestic work does not appear to be harmful. It is suggested that this negative…