RESEARCH STARTER

Child labor debate

Child labor refers to work that hampers a child's physical and mental development, undermines their dignity, and prevents them from accessing education. The International Labor Organization (ILO) emphasizes that not all work by children is harmful; for instance, jobs that comply with local labor laws and contribute positively to a child's development are not classified as child labor. Historically, child labor has roots in ancient societies and became particularly prevalent during the Industrial Revolution and colonial-era practices. Despite global efforts to combat child labor, it remains a significant issue, particularly in agriculture, where an estimated 70% of child laborers are found.

In 2020, the ILO reported around 160 million children engaged in child labor worldwide, with a notable percentage involved in hazardous work. Regions such as sub-Saharan Africa exhibit particularly high rates of child labor, often linked to poverty and insufficient social safety nets. The global community, through frameworks like the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, is actively working to eradicate child labor, setting targets for elimination by 2025. Strategies to address this issue include enhancing education access, promoting economic development, and advocating for stronger labor protections. However, the challenge remains complex, as societal and economic dynamics often complicate straightforward solutions to child labor.

Full Article


The concept of child labor as a category separate from the labor of adults is a relatively new idea. Until the mid-1800s, in more developed countries such as Great Britain and the United States, child labor was simply part of the ebb and flow of family life. Whether children worked on family farms, as apprentices to artisans, or as domestic laborers in kitchens and households, their labor was considered to be a significant, and necessary, contribution to the family’s survival.

With the advent of the Industrial Revolution in Europe and later the United States, combined with concern from middle class women about the conditions under which children worked, concerns developed about the exploitation of children. In Great Britain in the late 1800s, Parliament investigated abuses against children working in factories, while in the US, the federal government undertook investigations in the early 1900s to determine the extent of child labor in industry and whether children were provided adequate protection from abuse.

By the mid-1900s, most developed countries had compulsory education laws that limited child labor, but families in developing nations relied heavily on children’s contributions to the economic survival of the family. Globalization and the desire of manufacturers to find cheap labor offered more opportunities for wage labor, and concurrently drove more children into factories in regions such as East Asia and Latin America.

Children earn considerably less than adults in most settings, sometimes receiving as little as one fourth the wages of a male or female adult. Critics charge that this wage exploitation, combined with depriving children of education and proper working conditions, permanently stunts physical and educational growth, and creates a perpetual underclass and a vicious cycle of poverty.

By the turn of the twenty-first century, discussions on child labor centered on these less-developed regions, specifically on countries such as Mexico, Guatemala, China, and Malaysia.

Understanding the Discussion

Apprentice: A person who works with an experienced artisan or tradesperson, with the goal of learning a trade or a skill. Children were often apprenticed to adult artisans to provide cheap labor for unskilled work, learning the trade slowly throughout childhood and adolescence as they grew to become a skilled tradesperson as an adult.

Fair Labor Standards Act: Passed in 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act outlines hours, minimum wages, safety issues, and other labor standards for all workers, but also contains specific laws pertaining to children who are employed and legal requirements that employers must follow when hiring children.

Globalization: In economic terms, globalization refers to the flow of goods, capital, and labor across borders for the purposes of creating an economically efficient trade system that keeps costs low and fuels the creation of new markets.

Keating-Owen Act: The Keating-Owen Act of 1916 was the first piece of legislation in the US that specifically addressed child labor, and set standards for how children should be treated in employment. The US Supreme Court overturned the Keating-Owen Act, however, and the next major child labor legislation came in the form of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Sweatshop: A common term for a factory setting in which workers, often children, are exploited under hazardous conditions for extremely low pay.

History

The term “child labor” has become associated with the use of children in organized employment settings in fields such as the trades, manufacturing, agriculture, or domestic work. In most cases, children who work for paid employment do so out of economic necessity. Child labor was commonplace in the household, and children were routinely sent away to serve as apprentices and domestic labor for wages at ages as young as eight or nine in many cultures. Modern objections to child labor began within a few decades after the Industrial Revolution took hold in Great Britain.

Critics of child labor in the nineteenth century charged that children took jobs from men, who needed the wages to support their families. Other arguments against child labor included the negative impact on the child’s health, exploitation (physical and sometimes sexual) at the hands of adult workers and owners, the lack of education most working children received, and the lack of religious education most children experienced, as many worked on Sundays.

Arguments in favor of child labor included the belief that small children were ideal for many factory and farm jobs. With tiny hands that could slip into machines to help improve efficiency, or small statures that could withstand crouching in small, enclosed spaces in mines, children were desirable employees for some owners. Children were often considered to be more docile than adults, and could be physically punished and coerced into working long hours without complaint. Finally, parents argued that family poverty gave them no choice but to hire out their children for wages, to help the family avoid starvation and ruin.

In Great Britain, the first piece of legislation that addressed child labor was the 1842 Mining Act, which prohibited child labor in the mines. In the US, the 1916 Keating-Owen Act attempted to protect child laborers, but was overturned by the US Supreme Court. The 1930 Forced Labour Convention from the United Nations outlined some specific child labor policies that were recommended for member nations, addressing child labor as a global concern. In 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act set the tone for child labor legislation, outlining specific legal requirements for children under the age of sixteen as employees.

In the second half of the twentieth century, child labor practices in less developed countries became a focus of concern internationally. According to UNICEF, 168 million children between the ages of five and seventeen are employed in some form for wages, accounting for one in ten children worldwide. Most of these children are from the world’s bottom 20 percent income bracket, with as many as one in three children in sub-Saharan Africa employed as a child laborer. Jobs break down according to gender, with most girls serving as domestic labor or agriculture labor, and boys generally working in agriculture or manufacturing.

Beyond traditional child labor, the United Nations, in 1999, condemned the “worst forms of child labour,” which include child slavery, children used in the sex trades and pornography industry, children used in drug trafficking, and any work that is “likely to harm the health, safety, or morals of children.”

Critics of child labor point to education as a tool for easing children out of the labor force and for breaking cycles of generational poverty in developing nations. Many economists point to international economic development programs that show that as children’s education levels rise, the benefits to families outweigh the benefits of the small wages brought home by working children. Long-term outcomes for these children include improved economic opportunities, higher standards of living, improved health outcomes, and more.

Child Labor Today

In developed nations, the topic of child labor has become intertwined with globalization. Wealthier nations often import finished products from factories in regions where child labor is common. Anti-child-labor groups have created campaigns against the use of sweatshop labor, boycotting companies such as Nike for the use of child labor in factories in Asia. On the other hand, such boycotts are viewed by some capitalists and by workers in developing countries as misguided and even destructive, as families in Asia make the same arguments that poor parents made more than 150 years ago in Europe and the United States: the family needs the child’s wages to survive, and the region needs the factories for economic development and progress as globalization changes the international economic landscape.

According to UNICEF, as of 2013, 20 percent of children ages five to seventeen in Africa worked, down by about 20 percent since the start of the century; 78 percent of the total number of child laborers are in Asia. Between 2000 and 2012, child labor declined from 246 million to 168 million, the International Labor Organization reported.

The International Labor Organization estimates that it would cost $760 million to eliminate child labor over a twenty year period, but that the health, education, and economic benefits of this investment would exceed $4 trillion dollars in terms of improving the lives of child laborers, their families, and their countries’ economic development.

  • These essays and any opinions, information or representations contained therein are the creation of the particular author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of EBSCO Information Services.

Bibliography

Books

Schmitz, Cathryne L., Elizabeth K. Traver, and Desi Larson, eds. Child Labor a Global View (A World View of Social Issues). New York: Greenwood, 2004. Print.

Herndon, Ruth Wallis, and John E. Murray, eds. Children Bound to Labor: The Pauper Apprentice System in Early America. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2009. Print.

Periodicals

Amon, Joseph J., et al. “Child Labor and Environmental Health: Government Obligations and Human Rights.” International Journal of Pediatrics (2012): 1-8. Academic Search Complete. Web. 7 Feb. 2014. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=87283240 .

“Belaboring Child Labor.” America 211.8 (2014): 4. Points of View Reference Center. Web. 16 Nov. 2015. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=pwh&AN=98499173&site=pov-live

Bhat, Bilal A. “Forced Labor of Children in Uzbekistan’s Cotton Industry.” Intl. Journ. on World Peace 30.4 (2013): 61–85. Print.

“Child’s Pay.” Foreign Policy 213 (2015): 12. Points of View Reference Center. Web. 16 Nov. 2015. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=pwh&AN=108358009&site=pov-live

Huijsmans, Roy, and Simon Baker. “Child Trafficking: ‘Worst Form’ of Child Labour, or Worst Approach to Young Migrants?.” Development & Change 43.4 (2012): 919-46. Academic Search Complete. Web. 7 Feb. 2014. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=77497204 .

Okyere, Samuel. “Are Working Children’S Rights and Child Labour Abolition Complementary or Opposing Realms?.” International Social Work 56.1 (2013): 80-91. Academic Search Complete. Web. 7 Feb. 2014. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=84308188 .

Schmidt, James D. “Broken Promises: Child Labor and Industrial Violence.” Insights on Law & Society. 10.3 (2010). 14-17. Points of View Reference Center. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.Aspx?direct=true&db=pwh&AN=52706792&site=pov-live .

Shrivastava, Saurabh RamBihariLal, Prateek Saurabh Shrivastava, and Jegadeesh Ramasamy. “Roadmap to Achieve Global Elimination of Child Labor in Near Future.” Journal of Indian Association for Child & Adolescent Mental Health 9.4 (2013): 149-52. Academic Search Complete. Web. 7 Feb. 2014. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=91945649 .

Voy, Annie. “Globalization, Gender and Child Work.” Oxford Development Studies 40.1 (2012): 1-19. Academic Search Complete. Web. 7 Feb. 2014. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=71707893 .

Websites

“Child Labor: Down by a Third Since 2000.” UNICEF. US Fund for UNICEF, 30 Sept. 2013. Web. 16 Nov. 2015.

”ILO Convention 182.” United Nations. 24 May 2009 http://www.un.org/children/conflict/keydocuments/english/iloconvention1828.html .

Full Article


The concept of child labor as a category separate from the labor of adults is a relatively new idea. Until the mid-1800s, in more developed countries such as Great Britain and the United States, child labor was simply part of the ebb and flow of family life. Whether children worked on family farms, as apprentices to artisans, or as domestic laborers in kitchens and households, their labor was considered to be a significant, and necessary, contribution to the family’s survival.

With the advent of the Industrial Revolution in Europe and later the United States, combined with concern from middle class women about the conditions under which children worked, concerns developed about the exploitation of children. In Great Britain in the late 1800s, Parliament investigated abuses against children working in factories, while in the US, the federal government undertook investigations in the early 1900s to determine the extent of child labor in industry and whether children were provided adequate protection from abuse.

By the mid-1900s, most developed countries had compulsory education laws that limited child labor, but families in developing nations relied heavily on children’s contributions to the economic survival of the family. Globalization and the desire of manufacturers to find cheap labor offered more opportunities for wage labor, and concurrently drove more children into factories in regions such as East Asia and Latin America.

Children earn considerably less than adults in most settings, sometimes receiving as little as one fourth the wages of a male or female adult. Critics charge that this wage exploitation, combined with depriving children of education and proper working conditions, permanently stunts physical and educational growth, and creates a perpetual underclass and a vicious cycle of poverty.

By the turn of the twenty-first century, discussions on child labor centered on these less-developed regions, specifically on countries such as Mexico, Guatemala, China, and Malaysia.

Understanding the Discussion

Apprentice: A person who works with an experienced artisan or tradesperson, with the goal of learning a trade or a skill. Children were often apprenticed to adult artisans to provide cheap labor for unskilled work, learning the trade slowly throughout childhood and adolescence as they grew to become a skilled tradesperson as an adult.

Fair Labor Standards Act: Passed in 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act outlines hours, minimum wages, safety issues, and other labor standards for all workers, but also contains specific laws pertaining to children who are employed and legal requirements that employers must follow when hiring children.

Globalization: In economic terms, globalization refers to the flow of goods, capital, and labor across borders for the purposes of creating an economically efficient trade system that keeps costs low and fuels the creation of new markets.

Keating-Owen Act: The Keating-Owen Act of 1916 was the first piece of legislation in the US that specifically addressed child labor, and set standards for how children should be treated in employment. The US Supreme Court overturned the Keating-Owen Act, however, and the next major child labor legislation came in the form of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Sweatshop: A common term for a factory setting in which workers, often children, are exploited under hazardous conditions for extremely low pay.

History

The term “child labor” has become associated with the use of children in organized employment settings in fields such as the trades, manufacturing, agriculture, or domestic work. In most cases, children who work for paid employment do so out of economic necessity. Child labor was commonplace in the household, and children were routinely sent away to serve as apprentices and domestic labor for wages at ages as young as eight or nine in many cultures. Modern objections to child labor began within a few decades after the Industrial Revolution took hold in Great Britain.

Critics of child labor in the nineteenth century charged that children took jobs from men, who needed the wages to support their families. Other arguments against child labor included the negative impact on the child’s health, exploitation (physical and sometimes sexual) at the hands of adult workers and owners, the lack of education most working children received, and the lack of religious education most children experienced, as many worked on Sundays.

Arguments in favor of child labor included the belief that small children were ideal for many factory and farm jobs. With tiny hands that could slip into machines to help improve efficiency, or small statures that could withstand crouching in small, enclosed spaces in mines, children were desirable employees for some owners. Children were often considered to be more docile than adults, and could be physically punished and coerced into working long hours without complaint. Finally, parents argued that family poverty gave them no choice but to hire out their children for wages, to help the family avoid starvation and ruin.

In Great Britain, the first piece of legislation that addressed child labor was the 1842 Mining Act, which prohibited child labor in the mines. In the US, the 1916 Keating-Owen Act attempted to protect child laborers, but was overturned by the US Supreme Court. The 1930 Forced Labour Convention from the United Nations outlined some specific child labor policies that were recommended for member nations, addressing child labor as a global concern. In 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act set the tone for child labor legislation, outlining specific legal requirements for children under the age of sixteen as employees.

In the second half of the twentieth century, child labor practices in less developed countries became a focus of concern internationally. According to UNICEF, 168 million children between the ages of five and seventeen are employed in some form for wages, accounting for one in ten children worldwide. Most of these children are from the world’s bottom 20 percent income bracket, with as many as one in three children in sub-Saharan Africa employed as a child laborer. Jobs break down according to gender, with most girls serving as domestic labor or agriculture labor, and boys generally working in agriculture or manufacturing.

Beyond traditional child labor, the United Nations, in 1999, condemned the “worst forms of child labour,” which include child slavery, children used in the sex trades and pornography industry, children used in drug trafficking, and any work that is “likely to harm the health, safety, or morals of children.”

Critics of child labor point to education as a tool for easing children out of the labor force and for breaking cycles of generational poverty in developing nations. Many economists point to international economic development programs that show that as children’s education levels rise, the benefits to families outweigh the benefits of the small wages brought home by working children. Long-term outcomes for these children include improved economic opportunities, higher standards of living, improved health outcomes, and more.

Child Labor Today

In developed nations, the topic of child labor has become intertwined with globalization. Wealthier nations often import finished products from factories in regions where child labor is common. Anti-child-labor groups have created campaigns against the use of sweatshop labor, boycotting companies such as Nike for the use of child labor in factories in Asia. On the other hand, such boycotts are viewed by some capitalists and by workers in developing countries as misguided and even destructive, as families in Asia make the same arguments that poor parents made more than 150 years ago in Europe and the United States: the family needs the child’s wages to survive, and the region needs the factories for economic development and progress as globalization changes the international economic landscape.

According to UNICEF, as of 2013, 20 percent of children ages five to seventeen in Africa worked, down by about 20 percent since the start of the century; 78 percent of the total number of child laborers are in Asia. Between 2000 and 2012, child labor declined from 246 million to 168 million, the International Labor Organization reported.

The International Labor Organization estimates that it would cost $760 million to eliminate child labor over a twenty year period, but that the health, education, and economic benefits of this investment would exceed $4 trillion dollars in terms of improving the lives of child laborers, their families, and their countries’ economic development.

  • These essays and any opinions, information or representations contained therein are the creation of the particular author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of EBSCO Information Services.

Bibliography

Books

Schmitz, Cathryne L., Elizabeth K. Traver, and Desi Larson, eds. Child Labor a Global View (A World View of Social Issues). New York: Greenwood, 2004. Print.

Herndon, Ruth Wallis, and John E. Murray, eds. Children Bound to Labor: The Pauper Apprentice System in Early America. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2009. Print.

Periodicals

Amon, Joseph J., et al. “Child Labor and Environmental Health: Government Obligations and Human Rights.” International Journal of Pediatrics (2012): 1-8. Academic Search Complete. Web. 7 Feb. 2014. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=87283240 .

“Belaboring Child Labor.” America 211.8 (2014): 4. Points of View Reference Center. Web. 16 Nov. 2015. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=pwh&AN=98499173&site=pov-live

Bhat, Bilal A. “Forced Labor of Children in Uzbekistan’s Cotton Industry.” Intl. Journ. on World Peace 30.4 (2013): 61–85. Print.

“Child’s Pay.” Foreign Policy 213 (2015): 12. Points of View Reference Center. Web. 16 Nov. 2015. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=pwh&AN=108358009&site=pov-live

Huijsmans, Roy, and Simon Baker. “Child Trafficking: ‘Worst Form’ of Child Labour, or Worst Approach to Young Migrants?.” Development & Change 43.4 (2012): 919-46. Academic Search Complete. Web. 7 Feb. 2014. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=77497204 .

Okyere, Samuel. “Are Working Children’S Rights and Child Labour Abolition Complementary or Opposing Realms?.” International Social Work 56.1 (2013): 80-91. Academic Search Complete. Web. 7 Feb. 2014. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=84308188 .

Schmidt, James D. “Broken Promises: Child Labor and Industrial Violence.” Insights on Law & Society. 10.3 (2010). 14-17. Points of View Reference Center. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.Aspx?direct=true&db=pwh&AN=52706792&site=pov-live .

Shrivastava, Saurabh RamBihariLal, Prateek Saurabh Shrivastava, and Jegadeesh Ramasamy. “Roadmap to Achieve Global Elimination of Child Labor in Near Future.” Journal of Indian Association for Child & Adolescent Mental Health 9.4 (2013): 149-52. Academic Search Complete. Web. 7 Feb. 2014. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=91945649 .

Voy, Annie. “Globalization, Gender and Child Work.” Oxford Development Studies 40.1 (2012): 1-19. Academic Search Complete. Web. 7 Feb. 2014. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=71707893 .

Websites

“Child Labor: Down by a Third Since 2000.” UNICEF. US Fund for UNICEF, 30 Sept. 2013. Web. 16 Nov. 2015.

”ILO Convention 182.” United Nations. 24 May 2009 http://www.un.org/children/conflict/keydocuments/english/iloconvention1828.html .

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