Child labour and informal employment have remained persistent features of India’s socio-economic history, reflecting changing patterns of production, household livelihood strategies, labour relations, and economic inequality. This study examines the changing nature of child labour, informal employment, and economic exploitation in India from a historical and socio-economic perspective. It traces the continuity and transformation of labour practices across different periods, with particular attention to the persistence of child and informal labour within agriculture, household industries, small-scale manufacturing, construction, brick kilns, mining, domestic work, and other forms of unorganised employment. The study also examines the historical development of state intervention and labour protection through constitutional provisions, legislation, welfare measures, and institutional mechanisms relating to child labour, bonded labour, education, wages, and social security. Drawing upon Census of India data, Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) reports, the India Time Use Survey, reports of the International Labour Organization (ILO), UNICEF and other relevant sources, the study analyses trends and patterns of child labour and informal employment, with particular attention to regional variations and socio-economic factors such as poverty, caste, gender, migration, indebtedness, and the fragmentation of production. The study argues that although the nature and institutional regulation of labour have changed over time, several forms of economic vulnerability and labour exploitation have persisted, particularly among marginalised communities. The historical perspective therefore helps to understand contemporary child labour and informal employment not merely as present-day economic problems, but as outcomes of longer processes of social, economic, institutional, and legislative change.