is homework child labour

Does Homework Really Help Students Learn?

A conversation with a Wheelock researcher, a BU student, and a fourth-grade teacher

“Quality homework is engaging and relevant to kids’ lives,” says Wheelock’s Janine Bempechat. “It gives them autonomy and engages them in the community and with their families. In some subjects, like math, worksheets can be very helpful. It has to do with the value of practicing over and over.” Photo by iStock/Glenn Cook Photography

Do your homework.

If only it were that simple.

Educators have debated the merits of homework since the late 19th century. In recent years, amid concerns of some parents and teachers that children are being stressed out by too much homework, things have only gotten more fraught.

“Homework is complicated,” says developmental psychologist Janine Bempechat, a Wheelock College of Education & Human Development clinical professor. The author of the essay “ The Case for (Quality) Homework—Why It Improves Learning and How Parents Can Help ” in the winter 2019 issue of Education Next , Bempechat has studied how the debate about homework is influencing teacher preparation, parent and student beliefs about learning, and school policies.

She worries especially about socioeconomically disadvantaged students from low-performing schools who, according to research by Bempechat and others, get little or no homework.

BU Today  sat down with Bempechat and Erin Bruce (Wheelock’17,’18), a new fourth-grade teacher at a suburban Boston school, and future teacher freshman Emma Ardizzone (Wheelock) to talk about what quality homework looks like, how it can help children learn, and how schools can equip teachers to design it, evaluate it, and facilitate parents’ role in it.

BU Today: Parents and educators who are against homework in elementary school say there is no research definitively linking it to academic performance for kids in the early grades. You’ve said that they’re missing the point.

Bempechat : I think teachers assign homework in elementary school as a way to help kids develop skills they’ll need when they’re older—to begin to instill a sense of responsibility and to learn planning and organizational skills. That’s what I think is the greatest value of homework—in cultivating beliefs about learning and skills associated with academic success. If we greatly reduce or eliminate homework in elementary school, we deprive kids and parents of opportunities to instill these important learning habits and skills.

We do know that beginning in late middle school, and continuing through high school, there is a strong and positive correlation between homework completion and academic success.

That’s what I think is the greatest value of homework—in cultivating beliefs about learning and skills associated with academic success.

You talk about the importance of quality homework. What is that?

Quality homework is engaging and relevant to kids’ lives. It gives them autonomy and engages them in the community and with their families. In some subjects, like math, worksheets can be very helpful. It has to do with the value of practicing over and over.

What are your concerns about homework and low-income children?

The argument that some people make—that homework “punishes the poor” because lower-income parents may not be as well-equipped as affluent parents to help their children with homework—is very troubling to me. There are no parents who don’t care about their children’s learning. Parents don’t actually have to help with homework completion in order for kids to do well. They can help in other ways—by helping children organize a study space, providing snacks, being there as a support, helping children work in groups with siblings or friends.

Isn’t the discussion about getting rid of homework happening mostly in affluent communities?

Yes, and the stories we hear of kids being stressed out from too much homework—four or five hours of homework a night—are real. That’s problematic for physical and mental health and overall well-being. But the research shows that higher-income students get a lot more homework than lower-income kids.

Teachers may not have as high expectations for lower-income children. Schools should bear responsibility for providing supports for kids to be able to get their homework done—after-school clubs, community support, peer group support. It does kids a disservice when our expectations are lower for them.

The conversation around homework is to some extent a social class and social justice issue. If we eliminate homework for all children because affluent children have too much, we’re really doing a disservice to low-income children. They need the challenge, and every student can rise to the challenge with enough supports in place.

What did you learn by studying how education schools are preparing future teachers to handle homework?

My colleague, Margarita Jimenez-Silva, at the University of California, Davis, School of Education, and I interviewed faculty members at education schools, as well as supervising teachers, to find out how students are being prepared. And it seemed that they weren’t. There didn’t seem to be any readings on the research, or conversations on what high-quality homework is and how to design it.

Erin, what kind of training did you get in handling homework?

Bruce : I had phenomenal professors at Wheelock, but homework just didn’t come up. I did lots of student teaching. I’ve been in classrooms where the teachers didn’t assign any homework, and I’ve been in rooms where they assigned hours of homework a night. But I never even considered homework as something that was my decision. I just thought it was something I’d pull out of a book and it’d be done.

I started giving homework on the first night of school this year. My first assignment was to go home and draw a picture of the room where you do your homework. I want to know if it’s at a table and if there are chairs around it and if mom’s cooking dinner while you’re doing homework.

The second night I asked them to talk to a grown-up about how are you going to be able to get your homework done during the week. The kids really enjoyed it. There’s a running joke that I’m teaching life skills.

Friday nights, I read all my kids’ responses to me on their homework from the week and it’s wonderful. They pour their hearts out. It’s like we’re having a conversation on my couch Friday night.

It matters to know that the teacher cares about you and that what you think matters to the teacher. Homework is a vehicle to connect home and school…for parents to know teachers are welcoming to them and their families.

Bempechat : I can’t imagine that most new teachers would have the intuition Erin had in designing homework the way she did.

Ardizzone : Conversations with kids about homework, feeling you’re being listened to—that’s such a big part of wanting to do homework….I grew up in Westchester County. It was a pretty demanding school district. My junior year English teacher—I loved her—she would give us feedback, have meetings with all of us. She’d say, “If you have any questions, if you have anything you want to talk about, you can talk to me, here are my office hours.” It felt like she actually cared.

Bempechat : It matters to know that the teacher cares about you and that what you think matters to the teacher. Homework is a vehicle to connect home and school…for parents to know teachers are welcoming to them and their families.

Ardizzone : But can’t it lead to parents being overbearing and too involved in their children’s lives as students?

Bempechat : There’s good help and there’s bad help. The bad help is what you’re describing—when parents hover inappropriately, when they micromanage, when they see their children confused and struggling and tell them what to do.

Good help is when parents recognize there’s a struggle going on and instead ask informative questions: “Where do you think you went wrong?” They give hints, or pointers, rather than saying, “You missed this,” or “You didn’t read that.”

Bruce : I hope something comes of this. I hope BU or Wheelock can think of some way to make this a more pressing issue. As a first-year teacher, it was not something I even thought about on the first day of school—until a kid raised his hand and said, “Do we have homework?” It would have been wonderful if I’d had a plan from day one.

Explore Related Topics:

• Share this story

Senior Contributing Editor

Sara Rimer A journalist for more than three decades, Sara Rimer worked at the Miami Herald , Washington Post and, for 26 years, the New York Times , where she was the New England bureau chief, and a national reporter covering education, aging, immigration, and other social justice issues. Her stories on the death penalty’s inequities were nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and cited in the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision outlawing the execution of people with intellectual disabilities. Her journalism honors include Columbia University’s Meyer Berger award for in-depth human interest reporting. She holds a BA degree in American Studies from the University of Michigan. Profile

She can be reached at [email protected] .

Comments & Discussion

Boston University moderates comments to facilitate an informed, substantive, civil conversation. Abusive, profane, self-promotional, misleading, incoherent or off-topic comments will be rejected. Moderators are staffed during regular business hours (EST) and can only accept comments written in English. Statistics or facts must include a citation or a link to the citation.

There are 81 comments on Does Homework Really Help Students Learn?

Insightful! The values about homework in elementary schools are well aligned with my intuition as a parent.

when i finish my work i do my homework and i sometimes forget what to do because i did not get enough sleep

same omg it does not help me it is stressful and if I have it in more than one class I hate it.

Same I think my parent wants to help me but, she doesn’t care if I get bad grades so I just try my best and my grades are great.

I think that last question about Good help from parents is not know to all parents, we do as our parents did or how we best think it can be done, so maybe coaching parents or giving them resources on how to help with homework would be very beneficial for the parent on how to help and for the teacher to have consistency and improve homework results, and of course for the child. I do see how homework helps reaffirm the knowledge obtained in the classroom, I also have the ability to see progress and it is a time I share with my kids

The answer to the headline question is a no-brainer – a more pressing problem is why there is a difference in how students from different cultures succeed. Perfect example is the student population at BU – why is there a majority population of Asian students and only about 3% black students at BU? In fact at some universities there are law suits by Asians to stop discrimination and quotas against admitting Asian students because the real truth is that as a group they are demonstrating better qualifications for admittance, while at the same time there are quotas and reduced requirements for black students to boost their portion of the student population because as a group they do more poorly in meeting admissions standards – and it is not about the Benjamins. The real problem is that in our PC society no one has the gazuntas to explore this issue as it may reveal that all people are not created equal after all. Or is it just environmental cultural differences??????

I get you have a concern about the issue but that is not even what the point of this article is about. If you have an issue please take this to the site we have and only post your opinion about the actual topic

This is not at all what the article is talking about.

This literally has nothing to do with the article brought up. You should really take your opinions somewhere else before you speak about something that doesn’t make sense.

we have the same name

so they have the same name what of it?

lol you tell her

totally agree

What does that have to do with homework, that is not what the article talks about AT ALL.

Yes, I think homework plays an important role in the development of student life. Through homework, students have to face challenges on a daily basis and they try to solve them quickly.I am an intense online tutor at 24x7homeworkhelp and I give homework to my students at that level in which they handle it easily.

More than two-thirds of students said they used alcohol and drugs, primarily marijuana, to cope with stress.

You know what’s funny? I got this assignment to write an argument for homework about homework and this article was really helpful and understandable, and I also agree with this article’s point of view.

I also got the same task as you! I was looking for some good resources and I found this! I really found this article useful and easy to understand, just like you! ^^

i think that homework is the best thing that a child can have on the school because it help them with their thinking and memory.

I am a child myself and i think homework is a terrific pass time because i can’t play video games during the week. It also helps me set goals.

Homework is not harmful ,but it will if there is too much

I feel like, from a minors point of view that we shouldn’t get homework. Not only is the homework stressful, but it takes us away from relaxing and being social. For example, me and my friends was supposed to hang at the mall last week but we had to postpone it since we all had some sort of work to do. Our minds shouldn’t be focused on finishing an assignment that in realty, doesn’t matter. I completely understand that we should have homework. I have to write a paper on the unimportance of homework so thanks.

homework isn’t that bad

Are you a student? if not then i don’t really think you know how much and how severe todays homework really is

i am a student and i do not enjoy homework because i practice my sport 4 out of the five days we have school for 4 hours and that’s not even counting the commute time or the fact i still have to shower and eat dinner when i get home. its draining!

i totally agree with you. these people are such boomers

why just why

they do make a really good point, i think that there should be a limit though. hours and hours of homework can be really stressful, and the extra work isn’t making a difference to our learning, but i do believe homework should be optional and extra credit. that would make it for students to not have the leaning stress of a assignment and if you have a low grade you you can catch up.

Studies show that homework improves student achievement in terms of improved grades, test results, and the likelihood to attend college. Research published in the High School Journal indicates that students who spent between 31 and 90 minutes each day on homework “scored about 40 points higher on the SAT-Mathematics subtest than their peers, who reported spending no time on homework each day, on average.” On both standardized tests and grades, students in classes that were assigned homework outperformed 69% of students who didn’t have homework. A majority of studies on homework’s impact – 64% in one meta-study and 72% in another – showed that take home assignments were effective at improving academic achievement. Research by the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) concluded that increased homework led to better GPAs and higher probability of college attendance for high school boys. In fact, boys who attended college did more than three hours of additional homework per week in high school.

So how are your measuring student achievement? That’s the real question. The argument that doing homework is simply a tool for teaching responsibility isn’t enough for me. We can teach responsibility in a number of ways. Also the poor argument that parents don’t need to help with homework, and that students can do it on their own, is wishful thinking at best. It completely ignores neurodiverse students. Students in poverty aren’t magically going to find a space to do homework, a friend’s or siblings to help them do it, and snacks to eat. I feel like the author of this piece has never set foot in a classroom of students.

THIS. This article is pathetic coming from a university. So intellectually dishonest, refusing to address the havoc of capitalism and poverty plays on academic success in life. How can they in one sentence use poor kids in an argument and never once address that poor children have access to damn near 0 of the resources affluent kids have? Draw me a picture and let’s talk about feelings lmao what a joke is that gonna put food in their belly so they can have the calories to burn in order to use their brain to study? What about quiet their 7 other siblings that they share a single bedroom with for hours? Is it gonna force the single mom to magically be at home and at work at the same time to cook food while you study and be there to throw an encouraging word?

Also the “parents don’t need to be a parent and be able to guide their kid at all academically they just need to exist in the next room” is wild. Its one thing if a parent straight up is not equipped but to say kids can just figured it out is…. wow coming from an educator What’s next the teacher doesn’t need to teach cause the kid can just follow the packet and figure it out?

Well then get a tutor right? Oh wait you are poor only affluent kids can afford a tutor for their hours of homework a day were they on average have none of the worries a poor child does. Does this address that poor children are more likely to also suffer abuse and mental illness? Like mentioned what about kids that can’t learn or comprehend the forced standardized way? Just let em fail? These children regularly are not in “special education”(some of those are a joke in their own and full of neglect and abuse) programs cause most aren’t even acknowledged as having disabilities or disorders.

But yes all and all those pesky poor kids just aren’t being worked hard enough lol pretty sure poor children’s existence just in childhood is more work, stress, and responsibility alone than an affluent child’s entire life cycle. Love they never once talked about the quality of education in the classroom being so bad between the poor and affluent it can qualify as segregation, just basically blamed poor people for being lazy, good job capitalism for failing us once again!

why the hell?

you should feel bad for saying this, this article can be helpful for people who has to write a essay about it

This is more of a political rant than it is about homework

I know a teacher who has told his students their homework is to find something they are interested in, pursue it and then come share what they learn. The student responses are quite compelling. One girl taught herself German so she could talk to her grandfather. One boy did a research project on Nelson Mandela because the teacher had mentioned him in class. Another boy, a both on the autism spectrum, fixed his family’s computer. The list goes on. This is fourth grade. I think students are highly motivated to learn, when we step aside and encourage them.

The whole point of homework is to give the students a chance to use the material that they have been presented with in class. If they never have the opportunity to use that information, and discover that it is actually useful, it will be in one ear and out the other. As a science teacher, it is critical that the students are challenged to use the material they have been presented with, which gives them the opportunity to actually think about it rather than regurgitate “facts”. Well designed homework forces the student to think conceptually, as opposed to regurgitation, which is never a pretty sight

Wonderful discussion. and yes, homework helps in learning and building skills in students.

not true it just causes kids to stress

Homework can be both beneficial and unuseful, if you will. There are students who are gifted in all subjects in school and ones with disabilities. Why should the students who are gifted get the lucky break, whereas the people who have disabilities suffer? The people who were born with this “gift” go through school with ease whereas people with disabilities struggle with the work given to them. I speak from experience because I am one of those students: the ones with disabilities. Homework doesn’t benefit “us”, it only tears us down and put us in an abyss of confusion and stress and hopelessness because we can’t learn as fast as others. Or we can’t handle the amount of work given whereas the gifted students go through it with ease. It just brings us down and makes us feel lost; because no mater what, it feels like we are destined to fail. It feels like we weren’t “cut out” for success.

homework does help

here is the thing though, if a child is shoved in the face with a whole ton of homework that isn’t really even considered homework it is assignments, it’s not helpful. the teacher should make homework more of a fun learning experience rather than something that is dreaded

This article was wonderful, I am going to ask my teachers about extra, or at all giving homework.

I agree. Especially when you have homework before an exam. Which is distasteful as you’ll need that time to study. It doesn’t make any sense, nor does us doing homework really matters as It’s just facts thrown at us.

Homework is too severe and is just too much for students, schools need to decrease the amount of homework. When teachers assign homework they forget that the students have other classes that give them the same amount of homework each day. Students need to work on social skills and life skills.

I disagree.

Beyond achievement, proponents of homework argue that it can have many other beneficial effects. They claim it can help students develop good study habits so they are ready to grow as their cognitive capacities mature. It can help students recognize that learning can occur at home as well as at school. Homework can foster independent learning and responsible character traits. And it can give parents an opportunity to see what’s going on at school and let them express positive attitudes toward achievement.

Homework is helpful because homework helps us by teaching us how to learn a specific topic.

As a student myself, I can say that I have almost never gotten the full 9 hours of recommended sleep time, because of homework. (Now I’m writing an essay on it in the middle of the night D=)

I am a 10 year old kid doing a report about “Is homework good or bad” for homework before i was going to do homework is bad but the sources from this site changed my mind!

Homeowkr is god for stusenrs

I agree with hunter because homework can be so stressful especially with this whole covid thing no one has time for homework and every one just wants to get back to there normal lives it is especially stressful when you go on a 2 week vaca 3 weeks into the new school year and and then less then a week after you come back from the vaca you are out for over a month because of covid and you have no way to get the assignment done and turned in

As great as homework is said to be in the is article, I feel like the viewpoint of the students was left out. Every where I go on the internet researching about this topic it almost always has interviews from teachers, professors, and the like. However isn’t that a little biased? Of course teachers are going to be for homework, they’re not the ones that have to stay up past midnight completing the homework from not just one class, but all of them. I just feel like this site is one-sided and you should include what the students of today think of spending four hours every night completing 6-8 classes worth of work.

Are we talking about homework or practice? Those are two very different things and can result in different outcomes.

Homework is a graded assignment. I do not know of research showing the benefits of graded assignments going home.

Practice; however, can be extremely beneficial, especially if there is some sort of feedback (not a grade but feedback). That feedback can come from the teacher, another student or even an automated grading program.

As a former band director, I assigned daily practice. I never once thought it would be appropriate for me to require the students to turn in a recording of their practice for me to grade. Instead, I had in-class assignments/assessments that were graded and directly related to the practice assigned.

I would really like to read articles on “homework” that truly distinguish between the two.

oof i feel bad good luck!

thank you guys for the artical because I have to finish an assingment. yes i did cite it but just thanks

thx for the article guys.

Homework is good

I think homework is helpful AND harmful. Sometimes u can’t get sleep bc of homework but it helps u practice for school too so idk.

I agree with this Article. And does anyone know when this was published. I would like to know.

It was published FEb 19, 2019.

Studies have shown that homework improved student achievement in terms of improved grades, test results, and the likelihood to attend college.

i think homework can help kids but at the same time not help kids

This article is so out of touch with majority of homes it would be laughable if it wasn’t so incredibly sad.

There is no value to homework all it does is add stress to already stressed homes. Parents or adults magically having the time or energy to shepherd kids through homework is dome sort of 1950’s fantasy.

What lala land do these teachers live in?

Homework gives noting to the kid

Homework is Bad

homework is bad.

why do kids even have homework?

Comments are closed.

Latest from Bostonia

American academy of arts & sciences welcomes five bu members, com’s newest journalism grad took her time, could boston be the next city to impose congestion pricing, alum has traveled the world to witness total solar eclipses, opening doors: rhonda harrison (eng’98,’04, grs’04), campus reacts and responds to israel-hamas war, reading list: what the pandemic revealed, remembering com’s david anable, cas’ john stone, “intellectual brilliance and brilliant kindness”, one good deed: christine kannler (cas’96, sph’00, camed’00), william fairfield warren society inducts new members, spreading art appreciation, restoring the “black angels” to medical history, in the kitchen with jacques pépin, feedback: readers weigh in on bu’s new president, com’s new expert on misinformation, and what’s really dividing the nation, the gifts of great teaching, sth’s walter fluker honored by roosevelt institute, alum’s debut book is a ramadan story for children, my big idea: covering construction sites with art, former terriers power new professional women’s hockey league.

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

Child Labor Surges For The First Time In 20 Years. The Pandemic May Make That Worse.

Jaclyn Diaz

In this Nov. 13, 2017, AP file photo, a child collects palm kernels from the ground at a palm oil plantation in Sumatra, Indonesia. Indonesia is the world's largest palm oil producer. Binsar Bakkara/AP hide caption

In this Nov. 13, 2017, AP file photo, a child collects palm kernels from the ground at a palm oil plantation in Sumatra, Indonesia. Indonesia is the world's largest palm oil producer.

In 2020, the world marked a rise in child labor for the first time in two decades. Additionally, with the coronavirus pandemic upending economies and closing schools, the United Nations believes by 2022, the problem will get much worse.

An estimated 160 million children were involved in child labor around the world at the beginning of 2020--an increase of 8.4 million in four years, according to a new report by the UN and the International Labour Organization (ILO) . About half of those children were involved in hazardous work, like mining and farm work, that directly endangered their health and safety.

Children between the ages of five to 11 now account for just over half of the total global figure.

"The new estimates are a wake-up call. We cannot stand by while a new generation of children is put at risk," ILO Director-General Guy Ryder said in a statement.

COVID-19 has already been linked to children working longer hours or under worsening conditions because of job and income losses among vulnerable families. But by the end of 2022, nine million additional young people could be pushed into child labor because of the pandemic, the report says.

A simulation model, relying on pandemic-driven factors like a struggling economy, shows this number could rise to 46 million if they don't have access to critical social services, according to the UN and ILO.

Ryder called for "renewed commitment and energy to turn the corner and break the cycle of poverty and child labour."

He said policies that allow children to stay in school even in the midst of economic hardship, increased investment in rural development, and decent agricultural work are key to turning the tide.

The level of child labor is worse in sub-Saharan Africa

Despite the global picture, child labor in Asia, the Pacific, Latin America, and the Caribbean continues to trend downward thanks to more investments in education and child protection services.

But progress in sub-Saharan Africa has proved elusive due to high levels of poverty and HIV/AIDs, and conflict in the region, according to the report.

This region has more children in child labor than in the rest of the world combined, with 86.6 million young people aged five to 17, involved in child labor.

In sub-Saharan Africa, four out of every five children work in agriculture. This type of work exposes them to pesticides and other chemicals, extreme temperatures, and dangerous tools and machinery.

The United Nations says the COVID-19 pandemic risks significantly reducing gains made in the fight against child labor, putting millions of children at risk of being forced into exploitative and hazardous jobs. Brian Inganga/AP hide caption

The United Nations says the COVID-19 pandemic risks significantly reducing gains made in the fight against child labor, putting millions of children at risk of being forced into exploitative and hazardous jobs.

In the rest of the world, the agricultural sector accounts for the largest share of child labor at 70%. Another 19.7% work in services, like domestic work and transportation, and 10.3% work in industry, including mining, construction, and manufacturing.

Comparatively, in Europe and Northern America, just 3.8 million young people are involved in child labor.

More boys than girls are in child labor

If children live in rural areas, they are far more likely to be involved in child labor than their counterparts who live in urban areas. Minors living in rural areas are three times more likely to be working than those who live in cities.

Cesar, 13, places clay in a mold to make bricks at a factory in Tobati, Paraguay. Jorge Saenz/AP hide caption

Cesar, 13, places clay in a mold to make bricks at a factory in Tobati, Paraguay.

The child's gender also plays a factor in whether they work and what type of industry they are involved in. Young girls are more likely to be involved in domestic work and services, than mining or construction, the report says.

About 34 million boys are involved in child labor compared to girls, according to the report. The gender gap grows with age, and boys are roughly twice as likely as girls to be in child labor in the 15 to 17 age range.

Child labour ‘robs children of their future’, scourge must end urges UN

Facebook Twitter Print Email

Although child labour has decreased significantly over the last decade, one-in-ten children are still caught up in harmful work, the UN’s labour agency said on Friday, kicking off a year-long bid to eradicate the practice.  

“There is no place for child labour in society”,  said Guy Ryder, Director-General of the International Labour Organization ( ILO ). “It robs children of their future and keeps families in poverty."

Breaking down the stats 

152 million children are still affected by #childlabour. "There is no place for child labour in society. It robs children of their future and keeps families in poverty." - ILO Director-General, @GuyRyder #EndChildLabour https://t.co/YmW6oNJ6kJ International Labour Organization ilo January 15, 2021

While the number has dropped from 246 million in 2000 to 152 million in 2016, ILO noted uneven progress across regions. 

It pointed to some 72 million children working in Africa, which account for almost half of the world’s total. This is followed by Asia and the Pacific, home to 62 million child labourers.  

ILO highlighted that 70 per cent of these children work in agriculture – mainly in subsistence and commercial farming and livestock herding – and almost half in occupations or situations considered hazardous to their health and lives. 

The COVID factor 

Meanwhile, the COVID-19 pandemic has considerably exacerbated the situation by rendering everyone more vulnerable to exploitation, compounding poverty within defenseless populations and jeopardizing hard-fought gains in the fight against child labour.  

Furthermore, school closures have pushed millions more children into the labour market, so they can contribute to the family income.  

“With COVID-19 threatening to reverse years of progress, we need to deliver on promises now more than ever”, said the ILO chief. 

A year of action

On a positive note, ILO said that joint and decisive action can reverse this trend. 

In collaboration with the Alliance 8.7 global partnership, ILO launched the  International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour  to encourage legislative and practical actions to eradicate child labour worldwide. 

Adopted by the General Assembly in 2019, the year aims to urge governments to work towards achieving Target 8.7   of the  Sustainable Development Goals   (SDGs). 

Target 8.7 calls for immediate measures to end forced labour, modern slavery and human trafficking while also eliminating the worst forms of child labour, including use of child soldiers, and by 2025 ending child labour in all its forms. 

The 12-month campaign will also prepare the ground for the fifth Global Conference on Child Labour ( VGC ) in 2022, which will welcome additional commitments towards ending child labour in all its forms by 2025, and forced labour, human trafficking and modern slavery by 2030. 

“This International Year is an opportunity for governments to step up and achieve Target 8.7 of the Sustainable Development Goals by taking concrete actions to eliminate child labour for good”.  

• child labour

• Close Menu Search
• Entertainment
• Blondes Have More Fun
• You Can’t Handle It
• Let Me Talk to Ya!
• The Examiner Room
• Steve’s Corner
• Voices Podcast
• Total Impact Show
• The Watchmen Investigative Reporting Team
• Award Winning Staff Members
• NYPA Award Winner
• Our Mission
• Letter To Editor
• Request Coverage
• Pitch A Story
• Submit A Press Release
• Column Descriptions
• Special Report Archive
• Advertising Rates
• Z- Archives 2011
• Z – Archives 2010
• Probably Maybe
• From Wired To Weird
• Cluttered Library of Thoughts
• The King’s Opinion
• College Student’s POV
• Written Dissection
• Cat’s Scoreboard
• Just A Thought
• Around The Net
• Dorothy Parker Is Rolling In Her Grave
• Creatures Corner
• Mr. Basketball
• From The Outside Looking In
• Mainstream Media’s Mold
• Success Has Its Own Rewards
• Thoughts For Sharing
• Rumor Control
• The Stiff Upper Lip
• Metlife Reaction
• The Roddington Hour
• Apple Of Knowledge
• The Reality Check
• The Dancing Mouse
• Plain Old Jane
• Students Say…
• On A Tangent
• How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria
• Strike Of Enlightening
• And Then There Was Jackie…
• Isaac Has Issues…
• In Plain Sight With Lauren Whyte
• Food For Thought
• Anything That’s Rock N’ Roll
• The Future’s Voice
• With Morning Coffee
• The Random Hour
• Is Anyone Else Barefoot?
• Let’s Talk…
• The Amanda Show
• this is life, with a capital L
• The Hood, The Sad, and The Ugly
• Art We Live
• A Fangirl’s World
• Hannah Not From Montana
• Jack’s Column
• Winner Takes All
• Diaries Of A City Girl
• The Broadway Brat
• The Transfer Portal
• The Cultural Wildchild
• Blonde & Brains
• Concerts & Carbs
• The Tea Whisperer
• Matt Says It
• The Weekly Rage
• Nic’s Notables
• Musings of Miska
• Oregon My Oregon
• The Telltale Hope
• Eternal Sunshine of Jillian’s Min
• Words To Express
• Tales of an American Redhead
• Unpopular Complaint
• The Daily Grind
• Rhythm & Blues
• The Loner Galaxy
• Retro Rewatch
• The New Girl On The Block
• The Joke’s On Jess
• Peace of Heart
• Cocinando con Este
• Back To Earth
• Life Is But A Dream
• Sports Vibes
• Sports With EJ
• To Be Perfectly Frank
• ChatsWithVal
• Dan’s Rant
• Mike’s Fresh Market
• Taking the Dis from Disability
• The Best For You
• Jerry’s Column
• Casey’s Corner
• Let’s Be Honest
• The Mind of Amber
• Jadeen’s Scene
• Quali-Tea News
• Tracing My Fingertips To You
• The Truth of the Matter
• The Furry Corner
• What’s The Daily Scoop, Boo?
• Spilling The Tea
• Take It How It is
• All About Sports
• Sports Throw Down
• Overthinking Out Loud!
• The World As I See It
• Beyond The Ring
• Planeta Borboleta
• Ari’s Angle
• Sincerely, K
• Gossip Central
• With A Side Of Coffee
• Empathic Ember
• The Trendsetter
• Classifieds

Op/Ed: Homework Is a Form of Child Slavery

Rodney Jones , Staff Writer | May 1, 2017

Homework is arguably the worst punishment inflicted upon the student body. It affects many age groups, and is the number one killer of a good time in America. While it holds some actual value in earlier age groups for fundamentals like reading and math, it becomes a nuisance for those who have already developed these skills.

“Practice makes perfect” sounds great, until a student notices that it may not be necessary.

In my experience, homework is just tedious, implementing the repetition of tasks to establish memory of the material. In some studies, this tedious repetition has only been proven beneficial for math and reading. I personally found truth in this because my best subjects were Earth Science and Biology in high school.

Neither teacher gave homework until they had students in later years that performed poorly due to a lack of attention paid during class. The belief that “practice makes perfect” was thwarted by my lack of efforts still leading to success.

My problem was actually homework being a hindrance. I didn’t want to do homework, but in subjects as simple as English, it wasn’t difficult to pass the tests without outside assignments. Homework could, however, hold between ten and twenty percent of your grade depending on the teacher, so this could cause a large drop in grades regardless of actual mastery of the subject matter.

Homework takes away from free time that could be used for entertainment, work, or family time, but these are not the only negatives provided by this after school punishment.

In some cases, excessive homework can lead to heightened anxiety and depression, including all groups that are exposed to it, such as children. If children were raised in a manner that was somewhat more hands on, the homework struggle may not be required.

For example, I was taught to read aloud one night when my mother gave me a book, had me start on a random page and begin reading. If I messed up a sentence, I would start it over. If I messed up three times on one page, I would start the page over.

I was about six years old, and it taught me early on how to read aloud efficiently. Homework could be abolished if parents took some time to help students develop.

When the facts are considered, children experience nearly year-round work. They are in school from September to June, and even during Thanksgiving, Christmas, and spring break, they are given work packets that are giant.

These packets are plenty of work, and honestly disrespectful of free time during the holidays, and yet teachers would likely feel disrespected if the students didn’t do the work.

What is even funnier is when a teacher won’t grade tests because they claim they are busy with “grading the holiday work,” but it is holiday work that they went out of their way to assign.

And once a long year in school has come to a close, students get to look forward to a summer break as a reward for their hard work- after they do their summer reading assignment, that is. Then it’s back to school in September for the cycle to begin again, until they graduate or drop out.

High school and college are a bit different in time frames. Even here at Mercy, the standard class lecture is about two hours and fifty minutes, and meets once a week. One high school class alone spans forty five minutes, and typically meets all five days of the school week, with multiple subjects meeting per day.

These classes are better designed for learning in the high school set up, as the human mind is designed for 42 – 45 minutes of learning before a needed break, not almost three hours. That and meeting multiple times a week in short increments leads to better retention of information.

Meeting five times a week for 45 minutes results in three hours and forty five minutes of learning, and again, a college class has three total hours of learning once a week. Either way I look at it, I have trouble arguing in favor of homework. If a teacher has three hours or more to get their point across, how am I the problem for not wanting to spend more time on it when I get home?

I personally don’t think it’s my problem anymore.

Homework is a vile, blatant disregard for the social lives, or lack thereof in America. It is the legal form of child labor, and should be stopped. While beneficial in some cases, like developing fundamentals such as math and reading, in later life, it is a constricting element on the everyday lives of students everywhere.

I am a junior at Mercy College, majoring in TV and Media Studies. I am particularly interested in watching television because it is an instant entertainment...

OP/ED : What Child Stars Go Through For Our Entertainment

OP/ED : Feminism Today, Where Is It Leading Us?

OP/ED: Mercy University’s Recycling System

OP/ED: To Post or Not to Post: The Question of Gen Z Politics

OP/ED: The Lazy an Selfish America of AI

OP/ED: The True Architects of America

OP/ED: Photoshop or Ozempic?

OP/ED: Mayor Adams Vs. NYC Rats

OP/ED: Cleopatra – We Know Her Name, But Do We Know Her Race?

OP/ED: The Riddle of Modern Masculinity

The Award Winning News Publication of Mercy College

Comments (0)

Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

• High contrast
• Press Centre

Search UNICEF

Action against child labour, selected case studies from unicef programmes.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) and UNICEF latest estimates indicate that 160 million children worldwide are engaged in child labour – that is, work that they are too young to perform or that, by its nature or circumstances, is likely to harm children’s health, safety or morals. This underscores the urgent need for immediate action to eliminate child labour by 2025, a commitment enshrined within Sustainable Development Goal 8.7.1. The persistence of child labour is a human rights violation that not only undermines the health and well-being of children but also poses a challenging threat to national economies and the realization of global development objectives.

Five case studies from different corners of the globe – Costa Rica, Jordan, Timor, Leste, Türkiye and Viet Nam – offer a glimpse into UNICEF continuous efforts to address child labour and tackle its underlying causes. They demonstrate UNICEF collaborative initiatives with national governments, the private sector, international donors and civil society.

Files available for download

Related topics, more to explore, kingdom of saudi arabia pledges us $500 million to protect children around the world from polio and end the disease for good, who and france convene high-level meeting to defeat meningitis.

Acute hunger remains persistently high in 59 countries with 1 in 5 people assessed in need of critical urgent action - Global Report on Food Crises

Global immunization efforts have saved at least 154 million lives over the past 50 years

Child Labor and Economic Development

• Living reference work entry
• First Online: 18 November 2021
• Cite this living reference work entry

• Eric V. Edmonds 2 &
• Caroline Theoharides 3  

1080 Accesses

7 Citations

2 Altmetric

Two hundred and eighteen million children work in the world today. Seventy percent are in activities classified as child labor under local laws. While in policy circles child labor is often viewed as a rights issue, it is also an economic issue. Working children are both a cause and a consequence of a lack of economic development. Widespread child employment dampers future economic growth through its negative impact on child development and depresses current growth by reducing unskilled wages and discouraging the adoption of skill-intensive technologies. Child employment also appears to result from a lack of economic growth. Rising incomes are associated with improvements in the family’s ability to triage economic shocks without child labor, shifts in production to outside of the home, and greater demand for education and leisure. These factors all lead to declines in the economic activity of children.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Institutional subscriptions

Acemoglu D (2002) Technology and the labor market. J Econ Lit 40:7–72

Article   Google Scholar  

Acemoglu D (2007) Equilibrium bias of technology. Econometrica 75:1371–1470

Akresh R (2009) Flexibility of household structure: child fostering decisions in Burkina Faso. J Hum Resour 44(4):976–997

Google Scholar  

Alam SA (2015) Parental health shocks, child labor and educational outcomes: evidence from Tanzania. J Health Econ 44:161–175

Alvi E, Dendir S (1998) Weathering the storms: credit receipt and child labor in the aftermath of the great floods (1998) in Bangladesh. World Dev 39(8):1398–1409

Attanasio O, Guarin A, Medina C, Meghir C (2017) Vocational training for disadvantaged youth in Colombia: a long-term follow-up. Am Econ J Appl Econ 9(2):131–143

Augsburg B, De Haas R, Harmgart H, Meghir C (2015) The impacts of microcredit: evidence from Bosnia and Herzegovinia. Am Econ J Appl Econ 7(1):183–203

Baland JM, Robinson JA (2000) Is child labor inefficient? J Polit Econ 108(4):663–679

Baldwin R, Martin P, Ottaviano GIP (2001) Global income divergence, trade, and industrialization: the geography of growth take-offs. J Econ Growth 6:5–37

Bandara A, Dehejia R, Lavie-Rouse S (2015) The impact of income and non-income shocks on child labor: evidence from a panel survey of Tanzania. World Dev 67:218–237

Bandiera O, Burgess R, Das N, Gulesci S, Rasul I, Sulaiman M (2017) Labor markets and poverty in village economies. Q J Econ 132(2):811–870

Basu K (1999) Child labor: cause, consequence, and cure, with remarks on international labor standards. J Econ Lit 37(3):1083–1119

Basu K, Van PH (1998) The economics of child labor. Am Econ Rev 88(3):412–427

Basu K, Das S, Dutta B (2010) Child labor and household wealth: theory and empirical evidence of an inverted-U. J Dev Econ 91(1):8–14

Beegle K, Dehejia RH, Gatti R (2006) Child labor and agricultural shocks. J Dev Econ 81(1):80–96

Benavot A (1983) The rise and decline of vocational education. Sociol Educ 56(2):63–76

Bharadwaj P, Lakdawala LK, Li N (2020) Perverse consequences of well intentioned regulation: evidence from India’s child labor ban. J Eur Econ Assoc 18(3):1158–1195

Bratti M, Mendola M (2014) Parental health and child schooling. J Health Econ 35:94–108

Brown M, Christiansen J, Philips P (1992) The decline of child labor in the US fruit and vegetable canning industry: law or economics? Bus Hist Rev 66(4):723–770

Caselli F, Coleman WJ II (2006) The world technology frontier. Am Econ Rev 96(3):499–522

Clemens MA, Lewis EG, Postel HM (2018) Immigration restrictions as active labor market policy: evidence from the Mexican bracero exclusion. Am Econ Rev 108(6):1468–1487

Cockburn J, Dostie B (2007) Child work and schooling: the role of household asset profiles and poverty in rural Ethiopia. J Afr Econ 16(4):519–563

Cogneau D, Jedwab R (2012) Commodity price shocks and child outcomes: the 1990 cocoa crisis in Côte d’Ivoire. Econ Dev Cult Chang 60(3):507–534

Dammert AC (2008) Child labor and schooling response to changes in coca production in rural Peru. J Dev Econ 86(1):164–180

Dammert AC, De Hoop J, Mvukiyehe E, Rosati FC (2018) Effects of public policy on child labor: current knowledge, gaps, and implications for program design. World Dev 110:104–123

de Hoop J, Rosati FC (2014) Cash transfers and child labor. World Bank Res Obs 29(2):202–234

de Hoop J, Groppo V, Handa S (2020) Cash transfers, microentrepreneurial activity, and child work: evidence from Malawi and Zambia. World Bank Econ Rev. https://doi.org/10.1093/wber/lhz004

de Janvry A, Finan F, Sadoulet E, Vakis R (2006) Can conditional cash transfer programs serve as safety nets in keeping children at school and from working when exposed to shocks? J Dev Econ 79(2):349–373

De Silva I, Sumarto S (2015) How do educational transfers affect child labour supply and expenditures? Evidence from Indonesia of impact and flypaper effects. Oxf Dev Stud 43(4):483–507

DeGraff DS, Ferro AR, Levison D (2016) In Harm’s way: children’s work in risky occupations in Brazil. J Int Dev 28(4):447–472

Dehejia RH, Gatti R (2005) Child labor: the role of financial development and income variability across countries. Econ Dev Cult Chang 53(4):913–932

Dercon S (2002) Income risk, coping strategies, and safety nets. World Bank Res Obs 17(2):141–166

Dillon A (2013) Child labour and schooling responses to production and health shocks in Northern Mali. J Afr Econ 22(2):276–299

Doepke M, Zilibotti T (2009) International labor standards and the political economy of child labor regulation. J Eur Econ Assoc 7(2–3):508–518

Dollar D, Kraay A (2002) Growth is good for the poor. J Econ Growth 7(3):195–225

Dumas C (2013) Market imperfections and child labor. World Dev 42:127–142

Duryea S, Morales M (2011) Effects of the global financial crisis on Children’s school and employment outcomes in El Salvador. Dev Policy Rev 29(5):527–246

Duryea S, Lam D, Levison D (2007) Effects of economic shocks on children’s employment and schooling in Brazil. J Dev Econ 84(1):188–214

Edmonds EV (2005) Does child labor decline with improving economic status? J Hum Resour 40(1):77–99

Edmonds EV (2006) Child labor and schooling responses to anticipated income in South Africa. J Dev Econ 81(2):386–414

Edmonds EV (2007) Child labor. Handb Dev Econ 4:3607–3709

Edmonds EV (2008) Defining child labour: a review of the definitions of child labour in policy research. International Labor Organization, Geneva

Edmonds EV (2010a) Selection into worst forms of child labor. Res Labor Econ 31:1–33

Edmonds EV (2010b) Trade, child labor, and schooling in poor countries. In Trade adjustment costs in developing countries: impacts, determinants and policy responses, 179

Edmonds EV (2014) Does minimum age of employment regulation reduce child labor? IZA World Labor 73

Edmonds EV (2021) Globalization and the persistence of forced labor and child labor. In: Elliott K (ed) Handbook of globalization and labor standards. Elgar, Northampton, MA. forthcoming

Edmonds EV, Pavcnik N (2005a) The effect of trade liberalization on child labor. J Int Econ 65(2):401–419

Edmonds EV, Pavcnik N (2005b) Child labor in the global economy. J Econ Perspect 19(1):199–220

Edmonds EV, Pavcnik N (2006) Trade liberalization and the allocation of labor between households and markets in a poor country. J Int Econ 69(2):272–295

Edmonds EV, Schady N (2012) Poverty alleviation and child labor. Am Econ J Econ Pol 4(4):100–124

Edmonds EV, Shrestha M (2013) Independent child labor migrants. In: International handbook on the economics of migration. Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham

Edmonds EV, Shrestha M (2014) You get what you pay for: schooling incentives and child labor. J Dev Econ 111:196–211

Edmonds EV, Theoharides C (2020) The short term impact of a productive asset transfer in families with child labor: experimental evidence from the Philippines. J Dev Econ 146

Edmonds EV, Turk C (2002) Child labor in transition in Vietnam, vol 2774. World Bank, Washington, DC

Edmonds EV, Pavcnik N, Topalova P (2010) Trade adjustment and human capital investments: evidence from Indian tariff reform. Am Econ J Appl Econ 2(4):42–75

Emerson P, Souza AP (2003) Is there a child labor trap? Intergenerational persistence of child labor in Brazil. Econ Dev Cult Chang 51(2):375–398

Emerson P, Souza AP (2011) Is child labor harmful? The impact of working earlier in life on adult earnings. Econ Dev Cult Chang 59(2):345–385

Emerson P, Ponczek V, Souza AP (2017) Child labor and learning. Econ Dev Cult Chang 65(2):265–296

Emran MS, Robano V, Smith SC (2014) Assessing the frontiers of ultrapoverty reduction: evidence from challenging the frontiers of poverty reduction/targeting the ultra-poor, an innovative program in Bangladesh. Econ Dev Cult Chang 62(2):339–380

Fafchamps M, Shilpi F (2005) Cities and specialisation: evidence from South Asia. Econ J 115(503):477–504

Fafchamps M, Wahba J (2006) Child labor, urban proximity, and household composition. J Dev Econ 79(2):374–397

Fiszbein A, Schady N, Ferreira FHG, Grosh M, Kelleher N, Olinto P, Skoufias E (2009) Conditional cash transfers: reducing present and future poverty. The International Bank for Recontruction and Development, The World Bank, Washington, DC

Book   Google Scholar  

Fitzsimons E, Mesnard A (2014) Can conditional cash transfers compensate for a Father’s absence? World Bank Econ Rev 28(3):467–491

Fors HC (2012) Child labour: a review of recent theory and evidence with policy implications. J Econ Surv 26(4):570–593

Francavilla F, Giannelli GC (2010) The employment of mothers in India. Int J Manpow 31(2):232–257

Friedberg R, Hunt J (1995) The impact of immigrants on host country wages, employment, and growth. J Econ Perspect 9:23–44

Fuller RG (1922) Child labor and child nature. Pedagog Seminary 29(1):44–63

Galor O, Weil D (2000) Population, technology and growth: from Malthusian stagnation to the demographic transition and beyond. Am Econ Rev 90(4):806–828

Goodfriend M, McDermott J (1995) Early development. Am Econ Rev 85(1):116–133

Guarcello L, Lyon S, Rosati FC (2006) Child labour and education for all: an issue paper. Understanding children’s work programme working paper

Guarcello L, Lyon S, Rosati FC (2009) Household vulnerability and child labor: the effect of shocks, credit rationing, and insurance. J Popul Econ 23:169–198

Heim C, Nemeroff CB (2001) The role of childhood trauma in the neurobiology of mood and anxiety disorders: preclinical and clinical studies. Biol Psychiatry 49(2):1023–1039

Hornbeck R, Naidu S (2014) When the levee breaks: black migration and economic development in the American south. Am Econ Rev 103(3):963–990

Hossain M, Mullally CC, Ara J (2017) Asset transfers and child labor: evidence from a field experiment in Bangladesh. Working paper

International Labour Organization (2017) Global estimates of child labour: results and trends, 2012–2016. ILO: Geneva. https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/%2D%2D-dgreports/%2D%2D-dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_575499.pdf

Islam A, Choe C (2013) Child labor and schooling responses to access to microcredit in rural Bangladesh. Econ Inq 51(1):46–61

Jacoby HG, Skoufias E (1997) Risk, financial markets, and human Capital in a Developing Country. Rev Econ Stud 64(3):311–335

Jafarey S, Lahiri S (2005) Food for education versus school quality: a comparison of policy options to reduce child labour. Can J Econ/Revue canadienne d’économique 38(2):394–419

Jalan J, Ravallion M (1999) Are the poor less well insured? Evidence on vulnerability to income risk in rural China. J Dev Econ 58(1):61–81

Johnston B, Mellor J (1961) The role of agriculture in economic development. Am Econ Rev 51:566–593

Kamei A (2018) Parental absence and agency: the household characteristics of hazardous forms of child labour in Nepal. J Int Dev 30(7):1116–1141

Kassouf AL, McKee M, Mossialos E (2001) Early entrance to the job market and its effect on adult health: evidence from Brazil. Health Policy Plan 16(1):21–28

Kelly M (1997) The dynamics of Smithian growth. Q J Econ 112:939–964

Kiley M (1999) The supply of skilled labour and skill-biased technological Progress. Econ J 109:709–724

Kis-Katos K, Sparrow R (2011) Child labor and trade liberalization in Indonesia. J Hum Resour 46(4):722–749

Kruger DI (2007) Coffee production effects on child labor and schooling in rural Brazil. J Dev Econ 82(2):448–463

Landmann A, Frolich M (2015) Can health-insurance help prevent child labor? An impact evaluation from Pakistan. J Health Econ 39:51–59

Levy V (1985) Cropping pattern, mechanization, child labor, and fertility behavior in a farming economy: rural Egypt. Econ Dev Cult Chang 33(4):777–791

Locay L (1990) Economic development and the division of production between households and markets. J Polit Econ 98(5):965–982

Manacorda M (2006) Child labor and the labor supply of other household members: evidence from 1920 America. Am Econ Rev 96(5):1788–1801

Marx K (1959) Das Kapital, a critique of political economy. H Regnery, Chicago

McKenzie D (2017) How effective are active labor market policies in developing countries? A critical review of recent evidence. World Bank Res Obs 32(2):127–154

Miguel E, Satyanath S, Sergenti E (2004) Economic shocks and civil conflict: an instrumental variables approach. J Polit Econ 112:725–753

Moehling CM (1999) State child labor Laws and the decline of child labor. Explor Econ Hist 36(1):72–106

Nepal A, Nepal M (2012) Is child labour a substitute for adult labour? The relationship between child labour and adult illness in Nepal. Int Labour Rev 151(1–2):109–121

O’Donnell O, Van Doorslaer E, Rosati FC (2002) Child labour and health: evidence and research issues. Understanding children’s work programme working paper

Orazem P, Lee C (2010) Lifetime health consequences of child labor in Brazil. Res Labor Econ 31:90–133

Oreopoulus P, von Wachter T, Heisz A (2012) The short and long term career effects of graduating in a recession. Am Econ J Appl Econ 4(1):1–29

Pangburn W (1929) Play, the business of childhood. Am Child 29–31

Psacharopoulos G (1997) Child labor versus educational attainment: some evidence from Latin America. J Popul Econ 10(4):377–386

Punch S (2007) Negotiating migrant identities: young people in Bolivia and Argentina. Children’s Geograph 5(1–2):95–112

Ranjan P (2001) Credit constraints and the phenomenon of child labor. J Dev Econ 64(1):81–102

Ray R (2002) The determinants of child labour and child schooling in Ghana. J Afr Econ 11(4):561–590

Santos RJ (2018) Blessing and curse. The gold boom and local development in Colombia. World Dev 106:337–355

Sturrock S, Hodes M (2016) Child labour in low-and middle-income countries and its consequences for mental health: a systematic literature review of epidemiologic studies. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry 25(12):1273–1286

Sulaiman M (2015) Does wealth increase affect school enrolment in ultra-poor households: evidence from an experiment in Bangaldesh. Enterprise Dev Microfinance 26(2):139–156

Sviatschi MM (2020) Making a Narco: childhood exposure to illegal labor markets and criminal life paths. Econometrica forthcoming

Theoharides C (2020) The unintended consequences of migration policy on origin-country labor market decisions. J Dev Econ 142:102271

Wahba J (2006) The influence of market wages and parental history on child labour and schooling in Egypt. J Popul Econ 19(4):823–852

Wyndick B (1999) The effect of microenterprise lending on child schooling in Guatemala. Econ Dev Cult Chang 47(4):853–869

Yang D (2008) International migration, remittances and household investment: evidence from Philippine migrants’ exchange rate shocks. Econ J 118(528):591–630

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA

Eric V. Edmonds

Department of Economics, Amherst College, Amherst, MA, USA

Caroline Theoharides

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Eric V. Edmonds .

Editor information

Editors and affiliations.

UNU-MERIT & Princeton University, Maastricht, The Netherlands

Klaus F. Zimmermann

Section Editor information

Faculty Of Economics And Administration, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

M. Niaz Asadullah

Centre on Skills, Knowledge & Organisational Performance, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

Dept of Economics, University of Reading, Reading, UK

School of Education, Environment and Development (SEED),, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

IZA Institute of Labor Economics, Bonn, Germany

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2021 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this entry

Cite this entry.

Edmonds, E.V., Theoharides, C. (2021). Child Labor and Economic Development. In: Zimmermann, K.F. (eds) Handbook of Labor, Human Resources and Population Economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57365-6_74-1

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57365-6_74-1

Received : 06 May 2021

Accepted : 07 July 2021

Published : 18 November 2021

Publisher Name : Springer, Cham

Print ISBN : 978-3-319-57365-6

Online ISBN : 978-3-319-57365-6

eBook Packages : Springer Reference Economics and Finance Reference Module Humanities and Social Sciences Reference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences

• Publish with us

Policies and ethics

• Find a journal
• Track your research

The ECLT Foundation works directly with communities in 6 countries.

Child labour or acceptable work? Do you know the difference?

Share this article on

Across the world, the ILO estimates that there are 218 million children in employment. 152 million of these children are involved in child labour and 66 million are doing work which is considered light work. But what does this mean and how do we know the difference ? To understand what is child labour, and what isn’t, we use the ILO’s definitions .

What is child labour?

Child labour refers to work done under the minimum working age (in most countries 15) and is harmful to their health, education or development. If a child between the age of 15 and 17 and is doing work which is hazardous, for example night work, long hours, exposure to forms of abuse, in dangerous environments, or in unsafe conditions, this is also considered to be child labour.

What is acceptable work for children?

The ILO says that light work for children aged 13–15 (for limited hours and not harming their health, safety or school attendance and achievement), or for those aged 12-14 if the minimum age is set at 14, can be permitted. Helping around the house in a safe way can be an important part of childhood in some cultures, and often " can be a normal part of growing up in a rural environment ". Light work, however, should not be for more than 14 hours per week. For children above the minimum working age (say 15-18 in most countries) can work full time so long as they are not doing work which is considered a « Worst Form of Child Labour. »

The Worst Forms of Child Labour

Slavery, child trafficking, debt bondage, forced labour, children in armed conflict, and children working in illegal activities are considered to be some of the worst forms of child labour. Hazardous work is also one of the worst forms of child labour. It should not be done any child under 18 years old, even if he or she is over the legal minimum working age. Child labour which is considered hazardous “is work that is performed by children in dangerous and unhealthy conditions" (ILO). This means that the work is unsafe by nature, and inappropriate for children under 18 years-old regardless of the conditions or the safety equipment. Some examples of work that is hazardous by nature include handling dangerous chemicals or operating heavy machinery.

Still not sure what the difference is? Ask yourself these questions

Over 70% of child labour in agriculture so it’s important to support both farmers and families distinguish between child labour and appropriate child work. To do this we often encourage them to ask themselves the following question. If the answer to any of these questions is 'yes' then it is child labour and should be stopped immediately.

• Would this work take up too much time and prevent the child from going to school?
• Would this work make the child too tired to go to school or do homework?
• Would this work stop the child from having time to play and participate in social/family activities?
• Does any part of the work make the child feel unsafe, excluded or threatened?
• Does any part of the work harm the child physically or morally?
• Does this work involve using or being around chemicals, like fertilisers, heavy machinery or sharp tools?
• Is any part of this work illegal?

• Made by History

The Forgotten History of the Child Labor Amendment

C hild labor protections in America are being challenged at the state level and, in some cases, reversed in ways we haven’t seen in decades. In 2022 and 2023, Arkansas, Iowa, New Hampshire, and New Jersey passed laws weakening protections for child workers. At least eight other states are considering similar laws. Most recently, Missouri is considering a bill to loosen restrictions for kids ages 14 and 15, and the Alabama Policy Institute is pushing for undoing child labor laws as a solution to Alabama's labor shortage.

Such state-level rollbacks threaten to undermine the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the basis of federal child labor protections. In response, many are now calling for strengthening FLSA enforcement by increasing federal funding for inspectors.

However, the history of this legislation points to critical weaknesses in its framework. An alternative proposal that was considered at the time but that failed to pass, the Child Labor Amendment, would have forged much greater protections.

Many assume that the movement to abolish child labor in America was a straightforward march toward progress that culminated in the 1938 passage of the FLSA. In reality, the history of U.S. child labor regulation was a contentious battle that began with industrialization efforts in the post-Civil War South. Every step of the way, opposition backed by big business thwarted reformers' efforts to limit or abolish child labor.

Read More: Over 100 Kids Were Illegally Employed in Dangerous Meat-Packing Plant Jobs

By 1900, more than 1.75 million American children under the age of 15 worked for wages in industrial jobs. Ten years later, the total surpassed 2 million. That was more than 1 in 5 children under the age of 15.

These were low estimates since they did not include children working in agriculture or children working for their own families. A 1922 study of seasonal demand for farm labor in Virginia, Maryland, and New Jersey found that three-fifths of white children and nearly three-fourths of Black children were working before the age of 10. 

The direness of the child labor situation prompted many individuals across the country to band together in support of a Child Labor Amendment. An amendment to the Constitution would empower Congress to "protect all children in all parts of the country alike."

In this effort, reformers gained the support of many new allies including teachers' federations, women's clubs, religious organizations, labor unions, and African American reformers. The movement to abolish child labor had been overwhelmingly led by white reformers since the 1870s, when the growing problem of poor white children working in Southern textile mills launched the issue onto the national stage.

But the movement to regulate child labor became more diverse in the 1920s. African American reformers saw the amendment's potential to give Congress authority to protect Black children and youth, especially at a time when they were trying to secure anti-lynching legislation. As the Chicago Defender put it in 1924, "the mob doctrine" is what permitted the "barbarities" of both lynching and child labor to continue unimpeded in the South. Thus, editors wrote, "we are heartily in favor of the proposed amendment."

Labor unions took a special interest in child labor and opposed it because it threatened to reduce adult workers’ bargaining power. “America must find a way to abolish completely child labor,” American Federation of Labor (AFL) President Samuel Gompers wrote in 1922. Gompers reasoned that Prohibition activists had recently secured the 18th Amendment, and women had gained suffrage through the 19th Amendment because these issues were “a matter of national concern.” Child labor, he argued, was “an equally important issue and of equal concern to the nation as a whole.” Thus, a Child Labor Amendment should be “the final endeavor to emancipate childhood.” Riding a wave of public recognition and endorsements, reformers set their sights on amending the U.S. Constitution. After much debate the House and Senate approved the amendment in 1924. As reformers worked to get states to ratify the Amendment, child labor became one of the most debated political issues of the summer.

Unfortunately, business groups drummed up opposition to the amendment, causing it to lose momentum by 1925. While advocates continued to fight for states to ratify it well into the 1930s, by the time of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s presidency, they had accepted defeat.

Read More: Why Millions of Girls Are Doing Unpaid Care Work This Summer

When the Great Depression engulfed America in a severe economic crisis, reformers saw an opportunity to have child labor regulations included as part of FDR’s emergency recovery provisions. FDR strongly supported the addition of child labor regulations as part of his Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which was primarily a minimum-wage and maximum-hours measure for adult workers, designed to improve pay and working conditions.

The U.S. Children’s Bureau estimated that the new law would touch “only one-fourth of child labor in the United States.” Reformer Grace Abbott, a social worker who had served as director of the child labor division of the U.S. Children's Bureau from 1917 to 1919 was devastated, calling it a “mines and factories bill” that did not protect all children in all parts of the country. She was right. Applicable only to “shipment in interstate commerce goods produced in establishments where oppressive child labor conditions have prevailed within 30 days prior to shipment,” the FLSA exempted large swaths of child labor such as tenement houses, street trades, movies, retail, communications, and transportation. It also exempted “children under 16 employed in agriculture” and “children working for their parents in any occupation other than manufacturing or mining.”

The Christian Science Monitor called it a “conservative measure,” because it only forged minimal protections.

Once the FLSA was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1941, the public narrative about child labor reform became one of “victory.” Any public memory of the Child Labor Amendment battle, which would have forged much stronger protections, was forgotten.

Read More: Tipping Is Out of Control. It's Also a Serious Labor Issue

In the United States today we are where we are in part because of this failure. There are vulnerabilities in the FLSA that have led to large swaths of child labor going un- or under-regulated, such as in agriculture. The selective nature of the FLSA has shaped the landscape of child labor regulation for generations of young people in the U.S. And now, many states want to roll back the limited protections that do exist.

Today’s challenges would be familiar to the reformers who fought for the Child Labor Amendment a century ago and lost, and who accepted the FLSA as a consolation prize. They had to deal with similar setbacks for decades and they would be devastatingly familiar with a pro-business Supreme Court likely to undo federal child labor regulations if given the chance.

And yet the possibility remains of dusting off the Child Labor Amendment and giving it another go. As of 1937, 28 states had ratified it, ten short of the 38 needed for ratification. States that rejected the Child Labor Amendment in the early 20th century may vote differently today, such as Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, Delaware, and Maryland. New York, Rhode Island, and of course Hawaii, not a state until 1959, never took action on the proposed amendment. Voters in other states may also wish to strengthen protections against child labor.

To “protect all children in all parts of the country” today’s advocates could pick up where reformers left off and amend the Constitution “to empower Congress to regulate the labor of children under the age of 18.” Such an action could be a preemptive strike against a Supreme Court poised to unravel the regulatory framework established during the New Deal.

Empowering Congress to regulate children’s labor under an amended U.S. Constitution could lay the foundations for a consistent federal standard that prioritizes children’s rights at a critical moment when business interests are gaining ground. The people’s representatives could enact a national standard that closes loopholes and exceptions, righting a 100-year wrong that has been allowed to stand for far too long.

Dr. Betsy Wood is a historian and author of Upon the Altar of Work: Child Labor & the Rise of a New American Sectionalism . Dr. Wood has received national attention for her work on child labor in America and has been regularly interviewed by major media outlets on this topic. She is a professor of American history at Bard Early College in Newark, NJ, a satellite campus of Bard College.

Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Learn more about Made by History at TIME here . Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors.

More Must-Reads From TIME

• Putin’s Enemies Are Struggling to Unite
• Women Say They Were Pressured Into Long-Term Birth Control
• What Student Photojournalists Saw at the Campus Protests
• Scientists Are Finding Out Just How Toxic Your Stuff Is
• Boredom Makes Us Human
• John Mulaney Has What Late Night Needs
• The 100 Most Influential People of 2024
• Want Weekly Recs on What to Watch, Read, and More? Sign Up for Worth Your Time

Write to Betsy Wood / Made by History at [email protected]

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• Ind Psychiatry J
• v.27(1); Jan-Jun 2018

Challenges and perspectives of child labor

Amir radfar.

College of Graduate Health Studies, A.T. Still University, Mesa, Arizona, USA

Seyed Ahmad Ahmadi Asgharzadeh

1 Faculty of Medicine, Babol University of Medical Sciences, Babol, Iran

Fernando Quesada

2 Department of Medicine, Universidad de El Salvador, San Salvador, El Salvador

Irina Filip

3 Department of Psychiatry, Kaiser Permanente, Fontana, California, USA

Child labor is one of the oldest problems in our society and still an ongoing issue. During the time, child labor evolved from working in agriculture or small handicraft workshops to being forced into work in factories in the urban setting as a result of the industrial revolution. Children were very profitable assets since their pay was very low, were less likely to strike, and were easy to be manipulated. Socioeconomic disparities and lack of access to education are among others contributing to the child labor. Religious and cultural beliefs can be misguiding and concealing in delineating the limits of child labor. Child labor prevents physical, intellectual, and emotional development of children. To date, there is no international agreement to fully enforced child labor. This public health issue demands a multidisciplinary approach from the education of children and their families to development of comprehensive child labor laws and regulations.

INTRODUCTION AND HISTORICAL FACTS

Child labor is an old problem well rooted in human history. Children were exploited to various extents during different periods of time. The problem was common in poor and developing countries. In the 1800's, child labor was part of economic life and industrial growth. Children less than 14 years old worked in agriculture, factories, mining, and as street vendors.[ 1 ] Children from poor families were expected to participate to the family income, and sometimes they worked in dangerous conditions in 12-hour shifts.[ 1 ]

In the 1900's, in England, more than a quarter of poor families lost their children to diseases and death, endangering their extra financial support.[ 1 ] Boys worked in glass factories in high heat in three shifts because the furnaces were kept fired all the time to increase productivity, while girls were forced into prostitution. In 1910, it was estimated that more than two million children in the United States were working.[ 1 ]

With the increase of education, economy, and the emergence of labor laws, child labor decreased. However, child labor is still a widespread problem in many parts of the world in developed and developing countries. With the development of agriculture, children were again forced to be employed mostly by the families rather than factories. The main cause of child labor is the lack of schools and poverty.[ 2 ]

Per International Labor Organization (ILO, 2002), in the world, there are 211 million children laborers, 73 million under 10 years of age, 126 million children work in the worst forms of child labor, and more than 8 million are kept as slaves for domestic work, in trafficking, armed conflict, prostitution, and pornography. More than 20,000 children die yearly due to work-related accidents. Nearly, one-third of the world's children work in Africa.[ 3 ] Countries such as India have made efforts to tackle the worst forms of child labor. Despite this, 56.4% of children aged 5–14 work in agriculture and 33.1% work in industry.[ 4 ] Indian children are forced into labor to pay family debt. They work sometimes in hazardous environments, being forced into commercial sexual exploitation, human trafficking, or forcibly recruited or kidnapped to be part of terrorist groups.[ 4 ]

Child labor is morally and ethically unacceptable. United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) was the first international body that signed in 1989 the Convention on the Rights of the Children. It is for the first time in history when children are seen as humans with rights rather than economic assets of their parents. Child labor was defined as labor that harms the health of the children and deprives them of education rights. This law does not exclude children that work for their families.

ETHICAL FACETS OF CHILD LABOR

Child labor has many facets from the ethical point of view. Autonomy, beneficence, justice, nonmaleficence, privacy, and veracity are endangered during child labor.[ 5 ] Utilitarianists would support the idea of child labor as long as they are the sole providers for the family and without their income, the family would not survive and as long as the labor is voluntarily provided. The ends justify the means. Forced child labor is unethical because it is against the autonomy of the children. The consent of the working child is mostly manipulated by the parents. To give consent, a child needs to understand the situation, the consequences, and voluntarily agree to work. Children of young age, who have a less than fully competent capacity, can assent to an action by getting involved in the decision-making process. Children fall easy victims to unfair job conditions, and they do not have the power to stand-up against mistreatments.[ 6 ] The maleficence of this act has long-term physical, psychological, behavioral, and societal consequences. Even if they are lacking the competency of making informed decisions, they are considered individuals with autonomy that should be protected and safeguarded.[ 6 ]

Child labor is more common in developing countries where more than 90% of children live.[ 3 ] Child labor in developing countries affects 211 million children.[ 3 ] The continent with the highest child employment rate is Asia with 61%, followed by Africa and Latin America. Nearly 41% of the children in Africa are below 14 years old, followed by Asia with 22% and Latin America 17%.[ 3 ] India has made progress in reducing the child labor. However, more than 4 million children in India between 5 and 14 years old work more than 6 hours a day, while about 2 million children aged 5–14 work 3–6 months in a year.[ 4 ]

CULTURAL BELIEFS AND CHILD LABOR

Cultural beliefs have an important role in encouraging child labor. In developing countries, people believe that work has a constructive effect on character building and increases skill development in children. There is a tradition in these families, where children follow the parents' footsteps and learn the job from an early age. Some cultural beliefs may contribute to the misguided concept that a girl's education is not as important as a boy's education, and therefore, girls are pushed into child labor as providers of domestic services.[ 7 ] In India, not putting a child to work means the family would not make enough income to sustain their living. Sociocultural aspects such as the cast system, discrimination, and cultural biases against girls contribute to child labor.[ 4 ]

RELIGION AND CHILD LABOR

It is generally accepted that parents have the fundamental right to educate and raise their children. Parents almost always try to act in the child's best interest at the best of their knowledge and beliefs. In doing so, they are reasonably motivated by their intellectual growth, social development, and at times by spiritual salvation. Oftentimes, parents seek guidance in religion to shape the upbringing of their children and to enhance their progress. Hard work is among others, an important religious value to instill from a young age.

Krolikowski found that Christian children were the least likely to work, while Muslim children, children with no religion, and children affiliated with a traditional African religion were more likely to work than Christians.[ 8 ] The 40% higher incidence of child labor among Indian Muslims compared with Indian Hindus is due perhaps to the impoverishment of Muslim community.[ 4 ] Amish people's life is also regulated by religious values. They believe that work and faith bring people closer to God.[ 9 ] Amish children are initiated from childhood into apprenticeship to learn the trade, and beyond eighth grade, they have to provide like an adult for the community. Education of children beyond eighth grade is considered a threat to the community values. The U. S. labor laws forbid children less than 16 years of age to work in hazardous places such as sawmill or woodworking. However, in 2004 an exception was made by the United States Department of Labor, who approved an amendment that allows Amish children between 14 and 18 years old to work.[ 10 ]

POLICIES AND CHILD LABOR

Child labor is rooted in poverty, income insecurity, social injustice, lack of public services, and lack of political will.[ 7 ] Working children are deprived from a proper physical and mental development. The millennium development goals (MDGs), issued in 2001 to implement the Millennium Declaration, set up commitments for poverty reduction, education, and women's empowerment. Persistence of poverty is the major cause of labor. However, child labor also causes poverty because it deprives the children from education and from a normal physical and mental development hampering a prosperous life as adults. The first MDG in addressing poverty is the elimination of child labor.[ 11 ]

The International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC) was created by ILO in 1992 to progressively eliminate child labor. The priority addresses the worst forms of child labor such as slavery, prostitution, drug trafficking, and recruitment of children in armed conflicts.[ 12 ] IPEC is working with stakeholders from many countries to increase strengths and promote the fight against child labor. IPEC engage with multiple organizations, international and governmental bodies, community-based organizations, religious groups, private plural form businesses, children and their families.

Policy reform was promoted through country-based programs. The capacity building of institutions has been increased to better understand the obstacles and increase the ability of obtaining sustainable measures. These measures were meant to decrease child labor and bring children back in schools. In all these processes, statistical data were collected at the worldwide level, methodologies were set in place, and guidelines were created.

The Child Labor Platform was created as a business-led initiative by ILO in 2012, to identify the obstacles of the implementation of ILO conventions at the community level and to come up with solutions. This platform is a win-win situation for all parties involved: stakeholders as well children and their families. This platform offers training, research, and specialized tools to member companies, so they can carry out activities against child labor. Eliminating child labor is part of the corporates' social responsibility in line with their values and is what the society expects from them. This platform provides information how to get involved and how to find businesses that work collaboratively with the communities to solve the problem. Training and knowledge is a real value added for companies.[ 12 ] The Indian Government implemented a national project deemed to assist population to eradicate child labor, and set in place enforcements of criminal and labor law.[ 4 ]

ARGUMENTS FAVORING CHILD LABOR

Despite all these international and national measures against child labor, there are arguments in favor of child labor. Some argue that poor families would be even poorer without the supplemental financial contribution of children. Lack of money will deprive them of the basic needs of food and shelter which will decrease their survival rate. In addition, an increase in poverty would make children even more susceptible to exploitation.

The supporters of these ideas argue that the benefit of creating a safe workplace and allowing children to work is helpful in certain situations. They also emphasize that child work is not child labor as long as it does not interfere with schooling and children have safe workplace conditions with a limited number of hours per day.[ 13 ]

STAKEHOLDERS’ ROLE AND CHILD LABOR

The stakeholders most directly affected are the children and their families. Children are working at the expense of their education and normal mental development. Education is important not only for the intellectual development but also for the empowerment and acquisition of new skills for adult life. The health of children is endangered by work in hazardous conditions, abuse, exhaustion, malnutrition, or exposure to toxic materials. The psychological harm leads to behavioral problems later on in life.[ 14 ]

Despite the implementation of laws and measurements at the international level, child labor still persists, and it is caused by the same factors as 100 years ago. There is a need to address poverty and access to education. To date, there is no international agreement to define child labor. Every country has different laws and regulations regarding the minimum age for starting working based on the type of labor. The lack of international consensus on child labor makes the limits of child labor very unclear.[ 15 ]

Therefore, it is mandatory to create international policies that adopt a holistic approach to free quality education for all children, including labor children from poor families. Education should be continued beyond the primary school level and should be done in a formal setting. Studies show that nonformal education is a necessary but not a sufficient prerequisite for permanently withdrawing children from work.[ 15 ] The public educational system should be expanded to accommodate laborer children who still do not have access to school. More schools should be built, more teachers should be trained, and more educational materials should be available. A special attention should be given to children living in exceptional geographical conditions and mobility should be provided at the cost of the community. Children who dropped out of school should receive adequate guidance and support, and a smooth reentry should be facilitated. The development of schools in the rural areas would decrease the load of children in urban schools. This will allow parents to accommodate children's needs without having to migrate in big cities.

Another phenomenon that should be addressed is the social exclusion. Children engaged in the worst forms of child labor come from the lowest strata of the society. International Labor Organization launched a project on Indigen and tribal people, who are the most targeted by social exclusion. This project promotes their rights and encourages building capacity among their community.[ 15 ] Proper enforcement of child labor policies and the focus on education can break the cycle of poverty that drives the children into labor.

Child labor is a public health issue with negative outcomes that demands special attention. A multidisciplinary approach is needed to tackle child labor issues. Per ILO, poverty is a major single cause behind child labor. Lack of affordable schools and affordable education is another major factor to force children to work. Certain cultural beliefs rationalize this practice and encourage child labor as character building and skill development for children. Some cultural traditions encourage child labor as footsteps to their parents' jobs. Socioeconomic disparities, poor governance, and poor implementation of international agreements are among major causes of child labor. Macroeconomic factors also encourage child labor by the growth of low pay informal economy. Child labor prevents the normal well-being including physical, intellectual, and emotional psychosocial development of children. This public health issue cannot be eliminated by only enforcement of child labor laws and regulations. Any comprehensive policies should engulf a holistic approach on the education of children and their families, investment in early childhood development programs, establishing public education task forces in rural areas, implementing policies with focus on increasing adult wages, and discouraging consumers to buy products made by forced child labor. As such, ethical practice requires protection of all rights of children and protective policies and procedures which support the provisions of ILO's standards.

Financial support and sponsorship

Conflicts of interest.

There are no conflicts of interest.

Acknowledgment

The authors wish to thank the University Writing Center at A.T. Still University for assistance with this manuscript.

Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) Child Labor Rules Advisor

Alert: The Wage and Hour Division is providing information on common issues employers and workers face when responding to COVID-19 , including the effects on wages and hours worked under the Fair Labor Standards Act and job-protected leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act.

The FLSA Child Labor Rules Advisor is one of a series of elaws (Employment Laws Assistance for Workers and Small Businesses) Advisors developed by the U.S. Department of Labor to help employers and employees understand their rights and responsibilities under Federal employment laws. To view the entire list of elaws Advisors please visit the elaws website . To learn more about the Labor Department's efforts to promote and achieve compliance with labor standards in place to protect and enhance the welfare of the nation's workforce, visit the Wage and Hour Division (WHD) website .

Begin Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) Child Labor Rules Advisor Now

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR 200 Constitution Ave NW Washington, DC 20210 1-866-4-USA-DOL 1-866-487-2365 TTY www.dol.gov

ABOUT THE SITE

• Freedom of Information Act
• Privacy & Security Statement
• Disclaimers
• Important Website Notices
• Plug-ins Used by DOL
• Accessibility Statement

LABOR DEPARTMENT

• Español
• Office of Inspector General
• Subscribe to the DOL Newsletter
• Read the DOL Newsletter
• Emergency Accountability Status Link
• A to Z Index

Advancing social justice, promoting decent work ILO is a specialized agency of the United Nations

Issue paper

This issue paper brings together and reviews existing research on the interplay between climate change and child labour. It is aimed at providing an initial picture of some of the key channels through which climate change and climate change responses are linked to child labour, and the broad implications for policy moving forward.

The paper examines more than 100 articles from the peer-reviewed literature and reports from international organizations, think tanks and non-governmental organizations. The available evidence, though still limited, makes abundantly clear that climate change – and public and private responses to it - is already having profound impacts on child labour, and, following from this, on global progress towards ending all forms of child labour by the 2025 target date set by the Sustainable Development Goals. As the impacts of climate change grow and intensify, this will be even truer in the years up to and beyond the 2025 target date.

There is an urgent need to consider child labour in broader public and private action towards a just transition to climate-neutral economies and societies. This means, above all, ensuring that climate action is structured in a way that furthers child labour reduction goals and does not instead result in unintended negative consequences for child labour. Both public and private climate actions are relevant in this context.

Public climate action has implications for child labour across a range of policy areas. Safeguards, for example, are needed so that public policies promoting the clean energy transition do not create labour market disruptions that leave low-skill workers and their families in a position of greater vulnerability and more reliant on their children’s labour.

Climate change adaptation policies, such as environmentally sustainable methods to intensify agriculture production in the face of climate change, or public works schemes to buffer climate shocks, must also be designed in a way that reduces household dependence on child labour and do not instead result in greater demand for child labour.

In regulatory terms, combining both environmental and human rights considerations into national laws and regulations governing the behaviour of firms can play an important role in ensuring complementarity between these two regulatory goals.

Additional details

• ISBN: 978-92-2-039828-9 (Print); 978-92-2-038915-7 (Web PDF)

Related content

Issue paper on child labour and climate change - Executive summary

Child labour and climate change

Climate change profoundly affects child labour, ILO research finds

Topic portal

Child Labour

Bill 19, respecting the regulation of child labour, is adopted in Quebec

Canada |  Publication |  June 9, 2023

On June 1, 2023, Quebec parliamentarians unanimously passed Bill 19, which aims to prohibit work performed by children under the age of 14, subject to exceptions, and to regulate the work of children aged 16 and under, who are subject to compulsory school attendance.

As we wrote in a legal update following the presentation of Bill 19 to the National Assembly last March, the aim of this bill is to provide a better framework for the employment of young workers, following a marked increase in occupational injuries among young people and the impact on their academic success. Bill 19 was passed almost in its entirety, with only one amendment following special consultations held by the Committee on Labour and the Economy last April.

The purpose of this legal update is to inform employers of their obligations following the enactment of the Act respecting the regulation of child labour .  

Prohibition of work performed by young people aged 14 and under

The minimum legal age for working in Quebec is now 14, subject to the following exceptions set out in the Regulation respecting labour standards (the "Regulation"): 

• creation and performance in certain artistic fields;
• babysitting and newspaper delivery;
• homework assistance or tutoring;
• work performed in a family entreprise with fewer than 10 employees, if the child is a child of the employer, the child is the child of the spouse of the employer, or the child is a child of a director of that legal person or of a partner of that partnership;
• work performed as an assistant instructor, an assistant trainer or scorekeeper in a non-profit sports or social or community organization, such as a summer camp or a recreational organization;
• light manual work to harvest fruit or vegetables, care for animals or prepare or maintain the soil, when the child is aged 12 and over, working in an agricultural enterprise with fewer than 10 employees.

In the last three cases, children must work under adult supervision at all times.

The only amendment made to Bill 19 is the addition of an exception for children aged 12 and over working on a farm. This addition was made following representations made by many agricultural producers during special consultations held by the Committee on Labour and the Economy.

Hiring workers aged 14 and under covered by an exception

In any of the exceptional situations provided for in the Regulation, the employer must obtain authorization from the child's parent or guardian using the form established by the Commission des normes, de l'équité, de la santé et de la sécurité du travail (the "CNESST"). 

In particular, the employer must include in the form a description of the main tasks performed by the child, the maximum number of working hours per week and the periods of availability. Any subsequent changes to these elements require the written consent of the child's parent or guardian. The employer is also required to keep the form on file for a period of three (3) years.

Bill 19 was passed on June 1, 2023. As a result, the prohibition on employing children under the age of 14 applies from that date, subject to the exceptions described above.

As of June 1, 2023:

• The employer of an establishment that is required to identify and analyze risks that may affect the health and safety of workers must, with the participation of the health and safety committee, include the risks that may particularly affect the health and safety of workers aged 16 and under.
• The health and safety representative and liaison officer making recommendations to the health and safety committee or the employer must include those concerning risks that may particularly affect the health and safety of workers under the age of 16 and those concerning tasks that they should not perform given their potential consequences on their physical and psychological development.

No later than 30 days after the Bill is passed:

• The employer who employs a child under the age of 14 covered by one of the exceptions must obtain a CNESST consent form from the person with parental authority.
• One week's written notice, if the child has three months to less than one year's uninterrupted service;
• Two weeks' written notice if the child has between one and two years' uninterrupted service;
• Three weeks' written notice if the child has two or more years of uninterrupted service.

The employer may make the child work for the duration of this notice or pay them a compensatory indemnity equivalent to this duration.

As of September 1, 2023:

• An employer will no longer be able to make a child subject to compulsory school attendance 1 work more than 17 hours a week and more than 10 hours from Monday to Friday.

However, this prohibition will not apply to any period of more than seven (7) consecutive days during which no educational services are offered to the child.

Penalties for non-compliant employers

In light of the above, the coming into force of the Act respecting the regulation of child labour imposes new obligations on employers, some of which require action by employers between now and July 1, 2023. It is therefore important for employers to review their situation to determine whether they have any young workers on the payroll, or whether they intend to hire any in the future. 

Failure to comply with these new obligations could result in substantial financial penalties. First-time offenders are liable to a fine of $600 to $6,000, while repeat offenders can be fined up to $12,000. 

The author wishes to thank Emilie Murakami, law student, for her help in preparing this legal update. 

• Montréal

• Québec

Practice area:

• Employment and labour

Recent publications

Publication

Tips on how an effective IP settlement can be a winning strategy

Litigating intellectual property disputes, including patent, trademark, copyright, industrial design and trade secret rights, can be complex and time-consuming.

Canada | May 13, 2024

Ontario’s Working for Workers Five Act

On May 6, Ontario’s government introduced Bill 190, Working for Workers Five Act, 2024 for first reading.

Canada | May 9, 2024

Canada Labour Code updates in 2024 budget legislation

We now have details on proposed changes to the Canada Labour Code announced in the 2024 federal budget.

Canada | May 7, 2024

Subscribe and stay up to date with the latest legal news, information and events . . .

© Norton Rose Fulbright LLP 2023

• Canada (English)
• Canada (Français)
• United States
• Deutschland (Deutsch)
• Germany (English)
• The Netherlands
• Türkiye
• United Kingdom
• South Africa
• Hong Kong SAR
• Marshall Islands
• Nordic region

State Child Labor Penalties Expand in Pushback on Relaxed Limits

By Chris Marr

A countermovement is emerging among certain state lawmakers to strengthen enforcement of child labor laws and increase penalties against businesses that violate them, even as bills to loosen these protections in other states continue to advance.

Colorado in particular is set to tighten its child labor restrictions for a second straight year. A bill on its way to Gov. Jared Polis (D) aims to encourage underage employees to report illegal working conditions to the state by banning employer retaliation, eliminating potential criminal liability for their parents or guardians from Colorado law, and making final orders of a company’s violations public.

That bill, passed by the state’s legislators May 7, is perhaps the broadest effort against child labor of 2024 thus far. Lawmakers from Oregon to Virginia also have pushed back on what’s been a source of heated legislative debate in other states.

In Florida, a new law eases work-schedule restrictions for minors, while a bill awaiting Alabama’s governor would end youth work permit requirements.

The legislative activity coincides with increased findings of violations around the country and reports of egregious cases such as young teens working overnight to clean meatpacking plants, prompting federal investigations of Tyson Foods Inc. and Perdue Farms Inc.

Advocates for tighter child labor restrictions say legislation like Colorado’s is necessary to crack down on violators.

“If I were a minor suffering an egregious or any violation of child labor laws, I would have no reason under current Colorado law to come forward,” said Nina DiSalvo, policy director at Towards Justice, a Denver-based advocacy group that pushed for the bill. “I would lose my job, and my parent or guardian could be found guilty of a crime.”

That’s especially problematic because the Colorado labor department’s enforcement of child labor laws is largely driven by citizen complaints, as is the case in most states.

Under current law, the state receives only a handful of complaints each year and issues few citations, DiSalvo said.

The legislation also clarifies that employers could be ordered to pay damages to underage workers. Those damages would be on top of civil penalties paid to the state, a maximum of $4,000 per violation or $10,000 for willful violations.

In 2023, Colorado enacted legislation that lets underage workers who are injured while working in illegal conditions sue the employer for damages, rather than be limited to filing a worker’s compensation claim like most workers who suffer on-the-job injuries.

Industry-Led Push

Business groups primarily in the construction, hotel, restaurant, and retail industries, which complain of worker shortages, are helping drive state legislative proposals to relax child labor restrictions.

States should make it easier for teenagers to gain work experience while they’re still in high school by eliminating red tape such as work permits, conservative groups including the Foundation for Government Accountability say.

“The data show teenagers who have age-appropriate work opportunities thrive in post-secondary education and end up making more as adults, which is a really good thing as we see the cost of living continue to rise,” Haley Holik, senior fellow at the Foundation for Government Accountability, said in an emailed statement. “Our reform proposals concentrate on removing barriers to work opportunities for teenagers, making it easier for parents and teens to pick job opportunities that work for them.”

In that vein, the Missouri House passed a proposal May 7 to eliminate work permit requirements for underage workers, similar to Alabama’s bill. Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) vetoed a similar measure in April.

Indiana also enacted a measure this year relaxing limits on employment of minors, including the restrictions on hours they can work.

And Iowa made international headlines in 2023 with a new law that eliminates a list of hazardous job restrictions for underage workers if they’re part of a state-approved apprenticeship program.

US Labor Department officials told state lawmakers some parts of the legislation conflict with federal child labor limits under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Those include allowing underage teens to operate forklifts or “power-driven bakery machines, to manufacture brick, tile, or related products, and to work in wrecking, demolition, or ship breaking operations,” according to an August 2023 letter from DOL.

Joint Employer Liability

A key part of combating illegal child labor is holding the right parties accountable, said Terri Gerstein, director of the NYU Wagner Labor Initiative. That means ensuring state and federal agencies can penalize companies at the top of a supply chain for violations even when a subcontractor or smaller business partner is the employer of record for the underage workers.

State legislatures have rarely if ever tackled this question in the child labor context. A few have enacted laws imposing joint liability in other areas of employment law, such as wage theft in the construction industry.

Existing statutes such as the federal FLSA allow for potential joint employer liability, but the case law that has evolved over the years makes it hard for regulatory agencies to win against a large company that argues a subcontractor or franchisee instead is the employer, she said.

The US DOL’s pursuit of Perdue and Tyson is an unusual case of the federal agency pressing the joint employer issue in a child labor case, in which the companies’ subcontractors are accused of illegally employing underage workers in the meat companies’ plants.

“It should be less of a legal burden to be able to go up the chain and hold that entity liable,” Gerstein said.

“The way the law works now is it looks at the very specific details of the work situation,” such as who has hiring and firing authority, or who sets the workers’ schedules, she said. “It’s a very miserly and narrow way of understanding all the relationships.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Chris Marr in Atlanta at [email protected]

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Laura D. Francis at [email protected] ; Rebekah Mintzer at [email protected]

Learn more about Bloomberg Law or Log In to keep reading:

Learn about bloomberg law.

AI-powered legal analytics, workflow tools and premium legal & business news.

Already a subscriber?

Log in to keep reading or access research tools.

An official website of the United States government

Here's how you know

The .gov means it's official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Mothers’ employment has surpassed pre-pandemic levels, but the child care crisis persists.

The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare the precariousness of both employment and the caregiving infrastructure across the country. The huge shock to the economy, when coupled with the closure of schools and paid caregiving facilities, wreaked havoc on employment rates, and mothers’ employment in particular plummeted 15.7% from February to April 2020 *. While many mothers stopped working during this time because their employers shut down, others left the labor force because they had no other option than to provide full-time care for their loved ones. 

Now, four years later, overall maternal employment has largely recovered from the steep declines experienced at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, the share of employed mothers is 1.9% higher now than in February 2020 , according to a Women’s Bureau analysis of the Current Population Survey . And while the speed of employment recovery varied for different groups of mothers, as of February 2024, maternal employment has more or less recovered for most groups of moms. For many groups of mothers – Asian moms, Hispanic moms, those with a bachelor’s degree and those whose youngest child is younger than six years – employment rates now exceed pre-pandemic levels. For other groups of mothers – those with less than a bachelor’s degree and those whose youngest child is 13 to 17 years old – employment rates now hover around pre-pandemic levels. 

ACROSS MANY DEMOGRAPHIC GROUPS, MORE MOMS ARE EMPLOYED NOW THAN PRIOR TO THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC  Percent Change in Mothers’ Employment in February 2024 Relative to February 2020 

One factor that may have contributed to the growth in employment for some U.S. mothers is the increasing prevalence of telework. In 2023, about 24.2% of mothers reported working from home at some point in the prior week, with rates rising to 26.8% among mothers with whose youngest child is under the age of six, according to a Women’s Bureau analysis of the Current Population Survey. 

Although telework may be a valuable strategy for integrating work and family responsibilities for some, it is by no means a panacea . Many jobs – particularly service jobs, healthcare occupations and jobs in education – often do not offer telework options. Similarly, telework is often unavailable for those with less education: While 34% of mothers with only a bachelor’s degree and 36% of mothers with an advanced degree reported teleworking in the prior week, only 4% of mothers with less than a high school diploma reported teleworking. And even for those workers who can access it, telework is not a substitute for adequate, accessible and affordable child care . Indeed, child care availability has become even more constrained as many child care providers closed permanently or lost workers during the pandemic.   

When a family has child care issues, mothers miss work or reduce work hours more often than fathers. In 2023, among employed parents who did not work in the prior week, 3.1% of mothers and 1.1% of fathers reported child care problems as the reason for not working, according to a Women’s Bureau analysis of the Current Population Survey. Similarly, among employed parents who normally worked full-time but worked part-time in the prior week, 3.9% of mothers and 1.5% of fathers reported child care problems as the reason for working fewer hours. 

MORE MOMS THAN DADS TAKE TIME OFF WORK FOR CHILD CARE  Percent of Employed Parents Who Did Not Work or Worked Part-Time in the Prior Week Due to Child Care Problems   

Expanding and strengthening the U.S. care infrastructure could help alleviate these work disruptions and likely bolster mothers’ employment. Research from the Women’s Bureau finds that a 10% decrease in median child care prices in a county is associated with a 1% increase in maternal employment. Improving the care infrastructure also means ensuring quality jobs and family-sustaining wages for child care workers .

Expanded access to policies like paid family and medical leave could also improve stability in employment hours among those employed and reduce gender disparities in labor supply. While maternal employment has recovered and even exceeded pre-pandemic levels, the employment rate of mothers (71.7% in February 2024) remains far lower than that of fathers (92.0%). Estimates suggest that if the U.S. had a labor force participation rate similar to Canada or Germany – countries that both have national paid leave   and more comprehensive family-supporting policies – the number of women employed would increase by about 5 million and generate over $775 billion in economic activity a year . Although their employment has finally returned to pre-pandemic levels, the lack of a robust care infrastructure may   continue to prevent mothers from achieving their full potential in the labor force.

*Unless specified otherwise, data applies to mothers ages 25 to 54 with children under 13.

Erin George is an Economist at the Women’s Bureau.

• Women's Bureau

SHARE THIS:   

• Election 2024
• Entertainment
• Newsletters
• Photography
• Personal Finance
• AP Investigations
• AP Buyline Personal Finance
• AP Buyline Shopping
• Press Releases
• Israel-Hamas War
• Russia-Ukraine War
• Global elections
• Asia Pacific
• Latin America
• Middle East
• Election Results
• Delegate Tracker
• AP & Elections
• Auto Racing
• 2024 Paris Olympic Games
• Movie reviews
• Book reviews
• Personal finance
• Financial Markets
• Business Highlights
• Financial wellness
• Artificial Intelligence
• Social Media

A US company is fined $650,000 for illegally hiring children to clean meat processing plants

• Copy Link copied

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A Tennessee-based sanitation company has agreed to pay more than half a million dollars after a federal investigation found it illegally hired at least two dozen children to clean dangerous meat processing facilities in Iowa and Virginia.

The U.S. Department of Labor announced Monday that Fayette Janitorial Service LLC entered into a consent judgment, in which the company agrees to nearly $650,000 in civil penalties and the court-ordered mandate that it no longer employs minors. The February filing indicated federal investigators believed at least four children had still been working at one Iowa slaughterhouse as of Dec. 12.

U.S. law prohibits companies from employing people younger than 18 to work in meat processing plants because of the hazards.

The Labor Department alleged that Fayette used 15 underage workers at a Perdue Farms plant in Accomac, Virginia, and at least nine at Seaboard Triumph Foods in Sioux City, Iowa. The work included sanitizing dangerous equipment like head splitters, jaw pullers and meat bandsaws in hazardous conditions where animals are killed and rendered.

One 14-year-old was severely injured while cleaning the drumstick packing line belt at the plant in Virginia, the investigation alleged.

Perdue Farms and Seaboard Triumph Foods said in February they terminated their contracts with Fayette.

The agreement stipulates that Fayette will hire a third-party consultant to monitor the company’s compliance with child labor laws for at least three years, as well as to facilitate trainings. The company must also establish a hotline for individuals to report concerns about child labor abuses.

A spokesperson for Fayette told The Associated Press in February that the company was cooperating with the investigation and has a “zero-tolerance policy for minor labor.”

The Labor Department has called attention to a growing list of child labor violations across the country, including the fatal mangling of a 16-year-old working at a Mississippi poultry plant, the death of a 16-year-old after an accident at a sawmill in Wisconsin , and last year’s report of more than 100 children illegally employed by Packers Sanitation Services Inc., or PSSI, across 13 meatpacking plants. PSSI paid over $1.5 million in civil penalties.

The Labor Department’s latest statistics indicate the number of children being employed illegally in the U.S. has increased 88% since 2019.

We use cookies. Read more about them in our Privacy Policy.

• Accept site cookies
• Reject site cookies

Search results:

• Afghanistan
• American Samoa
• Antigua and Barbuda
• Bolivia (Plurinational State of)
• Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba
• Bosnia and Herzegovina
• British Virgin Islands
• Brunei Darussalam
• Burkina Faso
• Cayman Islands
• Central African Republic
• Channel Islands
• China, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
• China, Macao Special Administrative Region
• China, Taiwan Province of China
• Cook Islands
• Côte d'Ivoire
• Democratic People's Republic of Korea
• Democratic Republic of the Congo
• Dominican Republic
• El Salvador
• Equatorial Guinea
• Falkland Islands (Malvinas)
• Faroe Islands
• French Guiana
• French Polynesia
• Guinea-Bissau
• Humanitarian Action Countries
• Iran (Islamic Republic of)
• Isle of Man
• Kosovo (UNSCR 1244)
• Lao People's Democratic Republic
• Liechtenstein
• Marshall Islands
• Micronesia (Federated States of)
• Netherlands (Kingdom of the)
• New Caledonia
• New Zealand
• North Macedonia
• Northern Mariana Islands
• OECD Fragile Contexts
• Papua New Guinea
• Philippines
• Puerto Rico
• Republic of Korea
• Republic of Moldova
• Russian Federation
• Saint Barthélemy
• Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha
• Saint Kitts and Nevis
• Saint Lucia
• Saint Martin (French part)
• Saint Pierre and Miquelon
• Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
• Sao Tome and Principe
• Saudi Arabia
• Sierra Leone
• Sint Maarten
• Solomon Islands
• South Africa
• South Sudan
• State of Palestine
• Switzerland
• Syrian Arab Republic
• Timor-Leste
• Trinidad and Tobago
• Turkmenistan
• Turks and Caicos Islands
• United Arab Emirates
• United Kingdom
• United Republic of Tanzania
• United States
• Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of)
• Virgin Islands U.S.
• Wallis and Futuna

Search countries

Search for data in 238 countries

• SDG Progress Data
• Child Marriage
• Immunization
• Benchmarking child-related SDGs
• Maternal and Newborn Health Disparities
• Continuity of essential health services
• Country profiles
• Interactive data visualizations
• Journal articles
• Publications
• Data Warehouse
• Child labour

• Current status
• Available data
• Recent resources

Notes on the data

In the world’s poorest countries, slightly more than 1 in 5 children are engaged in child labour.

Children around the world are routinely engaged in paid and unpaid forms of work that are not harmful to them. However, they are classified as child labourers when they are either too young to work or are involved in hazardous activities that may compromise their physical, mental, social or educational development. In the least developed countries, slightly more than one in four children (ages 5 to 17) are engaged in labour that is considered detrimental to their health and development.

The issue of child labour is guided by three main international conventions: the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention No. 138 concerning minimum age for admission to employment and Recommendation No. 146 (1973); ILO Convention No. 182 concerning the prohibition and immediate action for the elimination of the worst forms of child labour and Recommendation No. 190 (1999); and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. These conventions frame the concept of child labour and form the basis for child labour legislation enacted by countries that are signatories.

Prevalence of child labour

In sub-Saharan Africa, slightly more than 1 in 4 children aged 5 to 17 years are engaged in child labour.

Gender disparities

In all regions, boys and girls are equally likely to be involved in child labour. However, gender disparities are often observed in the types of activities carried out, with girls far more likely to be involved in unpaid household services.

Child labour data

Build and download your own customisable dataset, child labour: global estimates 2020, trends and the road forward.

COVID-19 and Child Labour: A time of crisis, a time to act

Impact of Unpaid Household Services on the Measurement of Child Labour

How Sensitive are Estimates of Working Children and Child Labour to Definitions? A comparative analysis

Data sources

The main sources of data on child labour include the UNICEF-supported Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) and the ILO-supported Statistical Information and Monitoring Programme on Child Labour (SIMPOC) surveys . The Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) have adopted the MICS module on child labour in its questionnaires. Many countries also produce national labour estimates and reports that often include data on child labour and/or employment among children.

Data on child labour have been collected in MICS since 2000 in more than 50 surveys through a standard module questionnaire. A standard definition of child labour was also used to calculate the prevalence of child labour across countries. In 2010, following consultations with ILO, the standard MICS questionnaire underwent a careful revision to make it consistent with currently available international standards. [1]

The MICS module covers children 5 to 17 years old and includes questions on the type of work a child does and the number of hours he or she is engaged in it. Data are collected on both economic activities (paid or unpaid work for someone who is not a member of the household, work for a family farm or business) and domestic work (household chores such as cooking, cleaning or caring for children). The MICS child labour module also collects information on hazardous working conditions.

SIMPOC questionnaires have been developed to be used in a variety of data collection methods, including in stand-alone, household-based, child labour surveys and as a separate module in other household-based surveys. No specific operational definition of child labour is used in SIMPOC surveys across countries, but estimates are calculated on the basis of the definition used in the national legislation of individual countries. As a result, the definition of child labour that is used to calculate child labour estimates differs markedly among countries, as do the resulting estimates.

In December 2008, the International Conference of Labour Statisticians (ICLS) adopted the Resolution concerning the measurement of working time . The resolution sets standards for the collection and analysis of data on child labour and calls upon all countries to develop a system of child labour statistics. The resolution also confirms that any type of work undertaken by children should be considered in the measurement of child labour, in addition to economic activities. The target populations for the resolution are children aged 5 to 17 years who, during a specified time period, were engaged in one or more of the following categories of activities: worst forms of child labour, [2] employment below the minimum age, and unpaid household services.

Main indicators

The Resolution concerning the measurement of working time sets the threshold for economic activities at 14 or more hours per week for children aged 12 to 14 years, but does not specify precise thresholds for unpaid household services due to a lack of evidence that would support such a threshold. Since then, UNICEF and ILO have both conducted data analyses to support the establishment of a threshold for the inclusion of unpaid household services in the measurement of child labour. The results of these analyses were presented at the 19th ICLS, which took place in Geneva in October 2013. [3]

UNICEF’s standard indicator for child labour includes the following:

• Age 5 to 11 years: At least 1 hour of economic work or 21 hours of unpaid household services per week.
• Age 12 to 14 years: At least 14 hours of economic work or 21 hours of unpaid household services per week.
• Age 15 to 17 years: At least 43 hours of economic work per week.

MICS module on child labour

MICS surveys has a standardized module on child labour

Download the MICS module on child labour (PDF) 

[1] This means that data on child labour from earlier rounds of MICS are not directly comparable with data collected in subsequent rounds for any given country. The new MICS child labour module is only administered in reference to one randomly selected child within the relevant age group, rather than all children in the household. The rationale behind the changes introduced in the new MICS module can be found here: United Nations Children’s Fund, How Sensitive Are Estimates of Child Labour to Definitions? , MICS Methodological Paper No. 1, UNICEF, New York, 2012.

[2] ILO Convention No. 182 defines the worst forms of child labour, to be prohibited to all persons under 18 years, as a) all forms of slavery or practices similar to slavery, such as the sale and trafficking of children, debt bondage and serfdom and forced or compulsory labour, including forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflict; b) the use, procuring or offering of a child for prostitution, for the production of pornography or pornographic performances; c) the use, procuring or offering of a child for illicit activities, in particular for the production and trafficking of drugs as defined in the relevant international treaties; and d) work which, by its nature or the circumstances in which it is carried out, is likely to harm the health, safety or morals of children.

[3] UNICEF, Impact of Unpaid Household Services on the Measurement of Child Labour , MICS Methodological Paper No. 2, UNICEF, New York, 2013.

Related Topics

• Birth registration
• Child marriage
• Female genital mutilation
• -- Violent deaths
• -- Sexual violence
• -- Violent discipline
• -- Peer violence
• -- Violent unions
• -- Attitudes on violence
• Children in alternative care
• Justice for children

Join our community

Receive the latest updates from the UNICEF Data team

• Don’t miss out on our latest data
• Get insights based on your interests

The dataset you are about to download is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 IGO license.

• International edition
• Australia edition
• Europe edition

When Suella Braverman lectures Labour on child poverty, something is very wrong

If even the Tory right-winger sees political capital in opposing the two-child benefit cap, Keir Starmer needs to think again

S uella Braverman wants to help lift children out of poverty by scrapping one of her party’s harshest welfare policies. Yes, I do mean that Suella Braverman; and no, I can’t quite believe I’m typing these words either. Then again, who thought Natalie Elphicke would ever defect to Labour? Sometimes lions really do lie down with lambs, though you can see why lambs tend to have very mixed feelings about it.

Anyway, writing in the not exactly bleeding heart Sunday Telegraph, Braverman unexpectedly joined a long line of children’s charities and expert reports who have been pointing out for almost seven years now that the two-child benefits limit – which prevents families claiming tax credits or universal credit for a third or subsequent child born after 2017 – is plunging ever more families into desperate circumstances while failing to achieve what its author George Osborne said it would, which is incentivise work.

This is because 59% of families affected have at least one partner working already , and their problem is mostly that they’re not actually paid enough to survive on work alone. As for making poorer parents think twice about having children, plenty of people either don’t realise they’ll be caught by it until too late, or get pregnant in good times only to endure an unexpected run of subsequent bad luck.

What the policy definitely has done, however, is help ensure that 43% of families with three or more children are now living in poverty. It’s not just cruel but hopelessly ineffective on its own terms, and pretty much everyone in the Labour party knows it. How galling, then, to find themselves lectured from the moral high ground not just by Braverman but by Scotland’s brand new first minister, John Swinney, who renewed calls for a future Labour government to scrap the limit within days of being appointed.

The trouble with outflanking the Tories to the right as boldly as Keir Starmer has done is that it leaves his party defending a frankly implausible swathe of political territory, and not just from an attack by the left. In his wildest dreams Starmer presumably didn’t imagine someone like Braverman taking advantage of his exposed flank, any more than Labour MPs imagined having to defend a loose cannon like Elphicke against everything her former Tory colleagues can throw at her. But as confusing as all this shaking of the political kaleidoscope is, it does throw up some intriguing opportunities.

Scrapping the two-child limit would take almost half a million children out of poverty , at a cost of about £2.5bn by 2024-25. It’s money that the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, doesn’t currently have, but then she doesn’t have the money to raise defence spending to 2.5% of GDP either yet, and Labour is nonetheless promising to do that as soon as funds allow.

In both cases, cutting corners now could cost this country dearly in future. Though tackling child poverty is expensive, not tackling something with profound lifelong implications for health, education, employment and welfare is likely to cost billions more over the long term. Frankly, I’d be amazed if a future Labour government didn’t end up spending some of the proceeds of that future growth it keeps promising on alleviating poverty , just as it did when last in power. So why not say something more explicit?

The crude answer is that the two-child limit remains bizarrely popular , with 60% of voters polled by YouGov last summer keen to keep it. What makes Braverman’s intervention interesting, however, is that together with Swinney’s it shows how an otherwise wildly improbable coalition for changing minds may emerge.

Of the two, Swinney represents the more serious threat to a Labour party that badly needs to win back seats in Scotland. By promising to eradicate child poverty, just as Gordon Brown once did, the SNP is reminding potential defectors to Labour of a radical edge they sense is still missing under Starmer.

Braverman, by contrast, is more closely allied with rightwing pro-natalist Tory MPs who see falling birthrates as an existential threat to the west’s survival, and want the welfare state reengineered to support bigger families rather than discouraging them. This is where lions and lambs generally part company, of course: few in the Labour party would be comfortable fighting this particular corner with her.

But it’s not impossible to see a future Labour government finding itself awkwardly squeezed on the two-child policy between a hard-right culture war party led by someone like Braverman and its own disappointed critics on the left, over a position many Labour MPs already feel deeply uncomfortable defending. There’s one obvious way out of that. How lucky for Labour that it happens to be the morally conscionable thing to do.

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

• Suella Braverman
• Conservatives
• Child benefits

Most viewed

Feds crack down on labor exploitation amid national worry over fair treatment

A traveling carnival business owner in Texas is the latest to be accused of labor exploitation amid a surge in calls for worker protection reforms and child labor violations across the nation.

Angel Reyes Isidro, 41, allegedly operated a carnival business in Houston with unauthorized workers, according to an indictment. In 2019, Reyes falsified temporary employment applications to obtain H-2B visas for 24 unnamed foreign seasonal workers, the indictment alleges.

The H-2B program allows employers to temporarily hire foreign nationals to work temporary nonagricultural jobs in the United States, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Under the program, the department said employers are required to prove that they will offer wages that "equals or exceeds the highest of the prevailing wage" or is applicable to minimum wage standards.

But after the 24 workers entered the United States between June and August 2019, the indictment alleges Reyes charged them illegal visa fees, paid them below the minimum pay required, and made threats of deportation and loss of future employment opportunities. Reyes profited from the scheme and was paid to illegally transfer four workers to another employer.

The case underscores how employers across the country have benefited from the labor of exploited workers.

"Recent immigrants, both documented and undocumented, are among the most exploited workers in the country, enduring wage theft, dangerous working conditions, discrimination, and even physical assaults," according to the non-profit organization Green America .

Federal authorities have also increasingly called attention to labor violations after the Labor Department reported last year that child labor violations have risen 69% since 2018 . The rise in child labor cases in the United States coincides with the arrival of hundreds of thousands of unaccompanied minors in recent years.

Immigration and child advocates have noted that migrant children are vulnerable to labor exploitation and human trafficking in the country. Many migrant children have been found working in dangerous industries, such as meatpacking and poultry, construction, and major label food factories, according to the American Immigration Council’s Immigration Impact project .

Carnival business workers put in poor working, living conditions

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Texas said Reyes continued operating his carnival business with unauthorized workers from 2022 to the time of his arrest on April 28.

Reyes "placed the workers in cramped and crowded conditions where workers had to take turns sleeping on the floor because there was not enough bed space," the indictment states. Testimony during a federal court hearing further alleged that Reyes threatened workers with a firearm and sexually harassed female workers, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Prosecutors also said Reyes, who is a Mexican national living in the United States, "poses a serious flight risk, risk of obstructing justice and is a danger to the community." He has been charged with fraud in foreign labor contracting, false statements, and mail fraud, among other crimes, according to the indictment. 

Reyes faces up to 20 years in federal prison for mail fraud and a maximum of 10 years for visa fraud, the U.S. Attorney's Office said in a news release. The other counts carry a five-year maximum term of imprisonment.

'Jobs they should never have been near': Tennessee company fined nearly $650K for illegally hiring minors to clean slaughterhouses

Federal authorities take steps to strengthen labor protections

In 2023, the Labor Department announced new actions to protect workers against employer exploitation, including migrants and children. The new efforts to strengthen protections for workers were part of the Biden administration’s "approach to ensuring our most vulnerable workers know their rights, are protected from abuse at the hands of their employers and can advocate for themselves at work," the department said.

The H-2B program is one of many temporary work visa programs in the United States, according to an Economic Policy Institute report in 2022. The program is commonly used for jobs in landscaping, construction, forestry, seafood and meat processing, traveling carnivals, restaurants, and hospitality. 

The report noted that as the H-2B program continues to grow, migrants with H-2B visas are being “employed in industries in which there is extensive wage theft and lawbreaking by employers.” 

Citing data from the Labor Department, the report said nearly $1.8 billion in wages were stolen from workers between 2000 and 2021. During those years, more than 225,000 cases across seven major H-2B industries were investigated by the Labor Department with violations discovered in over 180,000 cases, according to the report.

"The H-2B program has been plagued by worker exploitation for too long," Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su said in a statement last October . "The Biden-Harris administration is committed to protecting H2-B workers from abuse and with this report, we’re taking a whole-of-government approach to protecting these vulnerable workers, which will also help ensure they are not used to undercut labor standards for domestic workers."

Uptick in child labor across the U.S.

Last year, the Labor Department denounced the uptick in child labor nationwide. Since then, federal authorities have issued penalties to numerous employers in violation of child labor laws, many including meat and poultry processing facilities.

During the fiscal year of 2023, the department said its investigators found that more than 5,800 children had been employed in violation of federal child labor laws — an 88% increase since 2019. In total, 955 federal investigations found child labor violations, which resulted in more than $8 million in penalties, according to the department.

The largest case of that year revealed at least 102 children , between the ages of 13 to 17, worked overnight shifts at 13 meat processing facilities in eight states. 

A federal investigation found that Packers Sanitation Services Inc. LTD (PSSI), which is based in Wisconsin and one of the nation’s largest food safety sanitation services providers, employed children in hazardous jobs to clean dangerous powered equipment, including brisket saws and "head splitters" used to kill animals.

The Labor Department said in its lawsuit that most of the children who worked at some of the facilities were not fluent English speakers and had to be interviewed in Spanish. NBC News reported in March 2023 that the Department of Homeland Security and Justice Department were investigating whether a human smuggling scheme brought migrant children to work at the facilities.

“Our investigation found Packers Sanitation Services’ systems flagged some young workers as minors, but the company ignored the flags. When the Wage and Hour Division arrived with warrants, the adults – who had recruited, hired and supervised these children – tried to derail our efforts to investigate their employment practices,” Labor Department Wage and Hour Regional Administrator Michael Lazzeri said in a statement last February .