Labor, Child

Child labor occurs along a continuum, with harmful and exploitative work that endangers the welfare and potential of the child at one end of the spectrum and light work and often beneficial training and apprenticeship at the other. National and international labor standard regulations with respect to what constitutes a legally permissible minimum age of employment accordingly depend typically on a range of criteria including (a) the type of work, as distinguished by the degree of hazard a child faces, or whether the child is subject to exploitation, or the worst forms of child labor; (b) the sector of employment, whether in agriculture, manufacturing, or family businesses or the household; and (c) the degree to which child labor work interferes with schooling, depending on the number of hours a child is put to work, say, per week.

Though child labor statistics inevitably paint an aggregate picture, the coverage of national and international statistics has improved, reflecting a diversity of activities that come under the umbrella of child labor work. International Labour Organization (ILO) statistics treat any child as economically active with performance of at least 1 hour of work during the week prior to a survey. The ILO also defines a child laborer as synonymous with (a) an economically active person between the ages of 5 and 11, and (b) an individual between the ages of 12 and 14 who performs 14 or more hours of nonhazardous work per week or 1 hour of hazardous work per week. Based on these definitions, over 200 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 are economically active worldwide, and of these, 186 million are child laborers. In addition, nearly 6 million children are in forced or bonded labor, 1.8 million in prostitution, and 0.3 million in armed conflict.

The absolute incidence of child labor is the highest in Asia (excluding Japan), which hosts around 127 million economically active children, followed by Africa and the Middle East (61 million) and Latin America (17 million). Increasingly, child labor occurs in southern Europe and in the transitional economies of central and eastern Europe. The participation rate of child labor is highest in Africa, where approximately one out of every three children (29 percent) is economically active. In Asia and in Latin America, the figures stand at 19 percent and 16 percent, respectively. Taken together, however, these contemporary statistics still fall short compared with the incidence of child labor in 19th-century, newly industrializing countries, including Britain, France, Belgium, western parts of Prussia, and the United States.

Poverty has been a central theme in child labor research. Income from child labor often constitutes a significant part of household income in poor households, yet child labor employment can also depress adult wages. Left unchecked, a vicious cycle of poverty may ensue in which low adult wages become both the cause and the effect of child labor employment. A related concern is the impact of child labor on fertility decisions. The lack of education as a child, low adult income, and a desire to ensure old age consumption can bias household decisions in favor of an increase in the quantity of children rather than the quality of children through education. A similar vicious cycle of poverty and child labor can likewise ensue, as underinvestment in education in one generation begets underinvestment in the next.

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