Using data from Brazil's 1996 national household survey, various dimensions of child labor were examined by gender, including participation, intensity, and type of activities; the relationships between child labor, education, and future earnings; and the risks of child labor to health and well being. Findings indicate that more boys than girls worked in Brazil, especially in rural areas where boys were concentrated in the agricultural sector; many children both worked and attended school; and girls attained higher levels of education than boys on average, even when considering number of hours worked. An individual's earnings were correlated with age of entry into the labor market, lower age of entry being related to lower earnings. Girls were more adversely affected by early labor force entry than boys. Taking poverty as the primary contributor to child labor, Brazilian government programs to combat child labor compensate families for a child's foregone earnings and address family factors that lead to poverty. However, programs could be improved by explicitly considering the gender dimensions of child labor. Also needed are analyses of the impact of child labor on health, intervention strategies for street children that consider gender, and research on child labor in domestic service where girls are overrepresented. (Contains 26 references.) (TD)