Working children are the objects of extreme exploitation in terms of toiling for long hours for minimal pay. Their work conditions are especially severe, often not providing the stimulation for proper physical and mental development. Many of these children endure lives of pure deprivation. However, there are problems with the intuitive solution of immediately abolishing child labor to prevent such abuse. First, there is no international agreement defining child labor, making it hard to isolate cases of abuse, let alone abolish them. Second, many children may have to work in order to attend school so abolishing child labor may only hinder their education. Any plan of abolishment depends on schooling. The state could help by making it worthwhile for a child to attend school, whether it be by providing students with nutritional supplements or increasing the quality and usefulness of obtaining an education. There must be an economic change in the condition of a struggling family to free a child from the responsibility of working. Family subsidies can help provide this support.
This analysis leads to certain implications for the international community. Further investigation into this subject is required before calls are made for banning child labor across the board. By establishing partnerships with humanitarian organizations, the international community can focus on immediately solving the remediable problems of working children.
Though restrictions on child labor exist
in most nations, many children do work. This vulnerable state leaves them
prone to exploitation. The International Labour Office reports that children
work the longest hours and are the worst paid of all laborers (Bequele
and Boyden 1988). They endure work conditions which include health hazards
and potential abuse. Employers capitalize on the docility of the children
recognizing that these laborers cannot legally form unions to change their
conditions. Such manipulation stifles the development of youths. Their
working conditions do not provide the stimulation for proper physical
and mental development. Finally, these children are deprived of the simple
joys of childhood, relegated instead to a life of drudgery. However, there
are problems with the obvious solution of abolishing child labor. First,
there is no international agreement defining child labor. Countries not
only have different minimum age work restrictions, but also have varying
regulations based on the type of labor. This makes the limits of child
labor very ambiguous. Most would agree that a six year old is too young
to work, but whether the same can be said about a twelve year old is debatable.
Until there is global agreement which can isolate cases of child labor,
it will be very hard to abolish. There is also the view that work can
help a child in terms of socialization, in building self-esteem and for
training (Collins 1983). The problem is, then, not child labor itself,
but the conditions under which it operates (Boyden 1991).
Legislation has been able to control child labor in the formal sector to some degree. As a result, child labor is most prevalent in the highly unmonitored, informal and rural sectors. For example, 66 percent of officially employed children aged 6 to 14 years in Peru work in the countryside (Boyden 1991). Because much of child labor is either in the informal sector or illegal, there is a lack of accurate data on this subject. Further quantification is necessary in order to learn more about this problem.
The
lack of enforcement of labor restrictions perpetuates child labor. This
is manifested in different ways. The number of enforcement officials is
very low, especially in developing countries where the immediate priority
of subsistence takes precedence over anything else. There are also inconsistencies
in legislation, which may pose problems. For example, a difference may
exist between the minimum ages required to work and drop out of school.
In many countries (Costa Rica, Thailand, Sri Lanka), the minimum working
age is lower than the required age of compulsory education, giving children
access to employment before they have even completed the minimum amount
of schooling. When impoverished children are allowed to work legally,
they will often abandon school to better their family's condition. In
the reverse situation, if the minimum age requirement for work is greater
than the compulsory schooling age, children who have completed the required
schooling must stay inactive for a period of time before they can legally
work. For example, when a poor child from Bangladesh finishes the required
schooling at 10 years of age, that child is not supposed to work until
the age of 14. Such an expectation seems unreasonable.
Children are often prompted to work by their parents. According to one
study, parents represent 62 percent of the source of induction into employment.
Children make their own decisions to work only 8 percent of the time (Syed
et al. 1991). In fact, a possible reason parents in developing countries
have children is because they can be profitable. Children seem to be much
less of an economic burden in developing versus developed countries. Children
in developing countries also contribute more time to a household than
they deplete as compared to their counterparts in developed countries
(Lindert 1976). Therefore, parents in developing countries make use of
children's ability to work.
Schooling problems also contribute to child labor. Many times children
seek employment simply because there is no access to schools (distance,
no school at all). When there is access, the low quality of the education
often makes attendance a waste of time for the students. Schools in many
developing areas suffer from problems such as overcrowding, inadequate
sanitation and apathetic teachers. As a result, parents may find no use
in sending their children to school when they could be home learning a
skill (for example, agriculture) and supplementing the family income.
Because parents have so much control over their children, their perception
of the value of school is a main determinant of child attendance. Parents
who are educated understand the importance of schooling from personal
experience. As a result, parental education plays a large role in determining
child schooling and employment (Tienda 1979). School attendance by a child
is also highly correlated with family income (Ilon and Moock 1991). Therefore,
when children drop out of school, it is not necessarily because of irresponsible
parenting; it may be due to the family's financial situation. When these
children leave school, they become potential workers. A major reason India
has the largest juvenile workforce is because 82 million children are
not in school (Weiner 1991). The result is that only a minority get a
quality education. For example, only 41 percent of Indians over the age
of 15 are literate. This decreases to 33 percent in Bangladesh and 26
percent in Pakistan (Weiner 1991). Poor families, however, are able to
recognize good quality schooling and are frequently prepared to sacrifice
child labor in order to invest in a good education for their children
Traditional factors are also important. The established female role in
certain countries dictates that women will not fit into traditional roles
if they become educated (Bequele and Boyden 1988). There is a pervasive
notion in some nations that educated females will not get married nor
have children. Therefore, many families raise daughters solely to take
over the household duties in order release the mother for paid labor.
Such cultural practices restrict the education of females and promote
child employment. The acceptance of social class separation perpetuates
child labor as well (Weiner 1991). For example, people of India's lower
castes are expected to perform manual labor and therefore are more apt
not to attend school.
Often parents in developing countries assign different roles to their children. This has been called child specialization, and may increase the number of working children (Chernichovsky 1985). This phenomenon involves certain siblings going to school while others work. Many times this depends on the birth order where the oldest is the one who attends school. Patrinos and Psacharopoulos (1993) find that the number of siblings does not have much of an effect on school enrollment, although it does have a significant effect on child labor. This exclusive effect is not inconsistent with the idea of specialization.
Rapid rural-to-urban migration is the cause
for the increasing rate of child labor in urban areas of developing countries.
Families leave the severity of agricultural working conditions for cities
in order to search for economic opportunities that often do not exist.
In the last 40 years, this movement has been drastic. In 1950, 17 percent
of the population of the developing world lived in urban areas. This increased
to 32 percent in 1988. By the year 2000 it is estimated that this proportion
will increase to 40 percent, and to 57 percent by the year 2025 (United
Nations 1989). Such increases, coupled with worsening economic trends,
force children and their families into urban poverty; children are soon
required to work (Barker and Knaul 1991).
Another problem with complete abolition of child labor is that education and employment for children are not mutually exclusive. As mentioned previously, many children work and go to school. In fact, many children have to work to go to school; otherwise, they could not afford the tuition and other fees associated with attendance. This underscores the fact that child labor and education may work together in many cases. As mentioned above, specialization allows some children to acquire an education through support of their working siblings. The result of abolishing child labor would then be a reduction in the educational attainment of a population. A study in Bolivia found that children who were not employed actually had the lowest educational achievement (UNICEF 1992). Another study found that only 20 percent of children who dropped out engaged in paid employment (Seetharamu and Devi 1985). Therefore, immediate abolition is not necessarily the answer. The relationship between labor and education is more complicated than expected.
The use of child labor may actually be a fundamental evolutionary stage in the development of a country. Evidence suggests that parents have children based on a cost-benefit perspective (Singh and Schuh 1986). As documented above, children in developing countries tend to be of economic value and, as a result, become a desirable asset for struggling parents. Children can significantly contribute to family income. Therefore, child labor is an intrinsic component of survival in a developing country. After a certain level of development is reached, children are more of an economic burden and take on less fiscal importance as contributors. During England's "developing stage", children's contributions to family income paralleled those of present day Peru and Paraguay. But as a country develops, children start to consume more than they produce. After World War II, the United States experienced pronounced development. An upward drift of adult skills and wartime demands for female labor pulled a large number of mothers from home (Lindert 1976). The result was, for the first time in the US an extra child consistently exhausted more household earnings than s/he supplied. Therefore, the role of children differs in developed and developing countries. At certain levels of poverty in developing countries, child labor may play an instrumental role in economic survival which augments national economic development.