Social protection measures have emerged as critical interventions to tackle child labour. However, the effectiveness of divergent models of social protection for preventing child labour is undertheorized by academic scholars, and the specific links between child labour and social protection policy generally are underexplored. To advance knowledge in this field, first, this article develops a conceptual framework to analyse evolving discourses relating to the design of social protection measures adopted by the World Bank (WB) and International Labour Organization (ILO). The analysis distinguishes between minimalist ‘safety-net and market-centred’ approaches to social protection (associated with the WB), and more fulsome ‘human rights-based’ interventions (associated with the ILO). The implications of these diverse models of social protection and their impact on children in economic exploitation are analysed. Second, the article engages in an innovative analysis of available empirical studies to measure the effectiveness in practice of different models of social protection. The article argues that interventions that are explicitly linked to broader socio-economic rights and align with a ‘human rights-based’ approach give rise to the most effective results. In contrast, interventions that adopt a ‘safety-net and market-centred’ approach can result in mixed outcomes, and/or increases in child labour. A further finding from the analysis reveals that the gendered burden of social reproduction work is a structural issue that cuts across all of the different social protection interventions and plays a crucial role in their varying outcomes. The article concludes with recommendations for policy makers that have implications for the design of ‘child-friendly’ social protection.