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Something worth noting about child labor.

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Masterhawk

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Nobody really likes child labor, and for pretty good reasons. Many of the jobs back in the industrial revolution that children did were rather dangerous. Furthermore, time that children spend working is time not spent getting an education. However, can it really be fixed with legislation?

The reason why child labor existed during the industrial revolution was because most families were so impoverished that they simply didn't have any other option. The only other alternative was to starve to death. Thus child labor is not a problem but rather a symptom of the real problem which is poverty. The rate of child labor began going down in the latter half of the 19th century when living standards for the working class began to rise. In the US, real wages went up by 60% between 1860 and 1890. This was also the time when child labor began its decline in the west.
Child Labor - Our World in Data

As you can see, in 1890, 11.66% of children were working (lower than the rate for the UK or Italy) but by 1930, it had fallen to 2.46% (keep in mind that this was during the great depression). And the first lasting federal child labor law wasn't passed till 8 years later. By then, the demand for child labor had fallen to negligible levels.

Another thing worth noting is that for most of human history, child labor was a fact of life. In preindustrial civilizations, just about every child who didn't grow up in the upper class was working. It was only during the industrial revolution that there was a backlash against it. Today, the US and Western Europe can afford to educate children to prepare them for the occupations that will pay better than most of the occupations during the industrial revolution as well as beforehand.

Child labor actually does exist today in certain countries and is the most prevalent in the poorest of them. Most child labor today exists as unpaid family labor in rural areas (most likely for agriculture), the same kind that has existed for most of recorded history.
 
Masterhawk said:
Nobody really likes child labor, and for pretty good reasons. Many of the jobs back in the industrial revolution that children did were rather dangerous. Furthermore, time that children spend working is time not spent getting an education. However, can it really be fixed with legislation?

The reason why child labor existed during the industrial revolution was because most families were so impoverished that they simply didn't have any other option. The only other alternative was to starve to death. Thus child labor is not a problem but rather a symptom of the real problem which is poverty. The rate of child labor began going down in the latter half of the 19th century when living standards for the working class began to rise. In the US, real wages went up by 60% between 1860 and 1890. This was also the time when child labor began its decline in the west.
Child Labor - Our World in Data

As you can see, in 1890, 11.66% of children were working (lower than the rate for the UK or Italy) but by 1930, it had fallen to 2.46% (keep in mind that this was during the great depression). And the first lasting federal child labor law wasn't passed till 8 years later. By then, the demand for child labor had fallen to negligible levels.

Another thing worth noting is that for most of human history, child labor was a fact of life. In preindustrial civilizations, just about every child who didn't grow up in the upper class was working. It was only during the industrial revolution that there was a backlash against it. Today, the US and Western Europe can afford to educate children to prepare them for the occupations that will pay better than most of the occupations during the industrial revolution as well as beforehand.

Child labor actually does exist today in certain countries and is the most prevalent in the poorest of them. Most child labor today exists as unpaid family labor in rural areas (most likely for agriculture), the same kind that has existed for most of recorded history.
Click to expand...

Red:
  • The notion that "nobody really likes child labor" doesn't comport with oodles of empirical data and anecdotal evidence. At best that notion is debatable.
    • The research you referenced indicates 65%+ of child laborers toil in agricultural roles. Clearly the folks tasking minors thus don't much mind children working; moreover, to the extent the proprietors task their own children to work in their enterprise -- be it performing menial administrative tasks or tending crops and/or livestock -- I dare say the proprietor likes employing his/her own children, if only because people enjoy having their children embrace the family business they or their parents started.

      Those phenomena characterize multiple industries/fields, but what the industries in which they appear have in common is that they are physical-labor intensive and the training/skills needed to effectively perform the tasks child laborers perform is comparatively low. Plumbing, cabinetmaking and other applications of carpentry, restauranteering and food preparation/service, performing arts (as talent or crew), and the like are a few examples.

      Whether the child preforming labor in one's firm is one's own or another's isn't a distinguishing quality of child labor, and neither is whether one pays for the child's labor. If one is fine with one's own children working thus, it stands to reason one has no materially endogenous objection to other children doing work similar to that one sets one's own kids to do.


Blue:
Would what "it" be "fixed with legislation?" (I assume by "fixed" you mean "abated," and my remarks below rely on that assumption's verisimility as their predicate.)
  • The incidence of folks tasking their kids to work in their own labor in their own firms? For the most part, no.
  • The incidence of folks employing unrelated children? To the extent adults in the community in which children are employed are willing and do report apparent child labor law violations, yes.
  • The danger inherent in certain roles? To some degree, particularly for talks enabled by mechaniery, yes.
 
And yet the products we buy come from nations with child labor. We get to tell ourselves that the world is a better place in 2019 because we don't do it here, but it's okay if child labor is an externality to our domestic economy, right?
 
Masterhawk said:
Nobody really likes child labor, and for pretty good reasons. Many of the jobs back in the industrial revolution that children did were rather dangerous. Furthermore, time that children spend working is time not spent getting an education. However, can it really be fixed with legislation?

The reason why child labor existed during the industrial revolution was because most families were so impoverished that they simply didn't have any other option.
Click to expand...

95% of the population for every country -- including children -- were needed to grow enough crops to feed everyone and have any hope of having a surplus to trade.

Then came the three-field crop-rotation system.

Now, you only needed 90% of the population -- including children -- to grow enough crops to feed everyone and hope to have a surplus for trade.

In the US, that was the situation up until the 1930s. With the introduction of mechanized farming, you know, the farm tractor, it required less labor, so children were then free to go to school longer.

When any country industrializes, that is when it moves from a 0 Level Agrarian Economy through the 1st Level Economy and into the 2nd Level Economy, it requires an extraordinary amount of labor, so much labor, that if children don't work, you can't industrialize.

That isn't necessarily true now, since technology has eliminated many of the jobs that existed in the Western World at the time they industrialized.
 
Economics almost always beats civics.

I think with further automation we will face in the coming decades we will have enough challenges keeping adults employed to be too concerned about child labor.
 
Xelor said:
Red:
  • The notion that "nobody really likes child labor" doesn't comport with oodles of empirical data and anecdotal evidence. At best that notion is debatable.
    • The research you referenced indicates 65%+ of child laborers toil in agricultural roles. Clearly the folks tasking minors thus don't much mind children working; moreover, to the extent the proprietors task their own children to work in their enterprise -- be it performing menial administrative tasks or tending crops and/or livestock -- I dare say the proprietor likes employing his/her own children, if only because people enjoy having their children embrace the family business they or their parents started.
Click to expand...

    • When I said that "nobody really likes child labor", I was really referring that most westerners look down upon the existence of child labor.

      The source I cited said that 68.4% of child labor in 2012 was by unpaid family workers. Plenty of sources say that most child labor happens in the rural areas. These two facts put together suggest that a large percentage of child labor happens in subsistence farming (growing just enough crops to feed yourself and your family) which is particularly common in less developed countries.

      Those phenomena characterize multiple industries/fields, but what the industries in which they appear have in common is that they are physical-labor intensive and the training/skills needed to effectively perform the tasks child laborers perform is comparatively low. Plumbing, cabinetmaking and other applications of carpentry, restauranteering and food preparation/service, performing arts (as talent or crew), and the like are a few examples.
      Those phenomena characterize multiple industries/fields, but what the industries in which they appear have in common is that they are physical-labor intensive and the training/skills needed to effectively perform the tasks child laborers perform is comparatively low. Plumbing, cabinetmaking and other applications of carpentry, restauranteering and food preparation/service, performing arts (as talent or crew), and the like are a few examples.
      Click to expand...
      As a nation industrializes, the jobs created tend to require more skill, thus leading to the expansion of education. This is one of the reasons why child labor went into decline.

      Whether the child preforming labor in one's firm is one's own or another's isn't a distinguishing quality of child labor, and neither is whether one pays for the child's labor. If one is fine with one's own children working thus, it stands to reason one has no materially endogenous objection to other children doing work similar to that one sets one's own kids to do.
      Click to expand...
Blue:
Would what "it" be "fixed with legislation?" (I assume by "fixed" you mean "abated," and my remarks below rely on that assumption's verisimility as their predicate.)
  • The incidence of folks tasking their kids to work in their own labor in their own firms? For the most part, no.
  • The incidence of folks employing unrelated children? To the extent adults in the community in which children are employed are willing and do report apparent child labor law violations, yes.
  • The danger inherent in certain roles? To some degree, particularly for talks enabled by mechaniery, yes.
Click to expand...
 
Masterhawk said:
Nobody really likes child labor, and for pretty good reasons. Many of the jobs back in the industrial revolution that children did were rather dangerous. Furthermore, time that children spend working is time not spent getting an education. However, can it really be fixed with legislation?

The reason why child labor existed during the industrial revolution was because most families were so impoverished that they simply didn't have any other option. The only other alternative was to starve to death. Thus child labor is not a problem but rather a symptom of the real problem which is poverty. The rate of child labor began going down in the latter half of the 19th century when living standards for the working class began to rise. In the US, real wages went up by 60% between 1860 and 1890. This was also the time when child labor began its decline in the west.
Child Labor - Our World in Data

As you can see, in 1890, 11.66% of children were working (lower than the rate for the UK or Italy) but by 1930, it had fallen to 2.46% (keep in mind that this was during the great depression). And the first lasting federal child labor law wasn't passed till 8 years later. By then, the demand for child labor had fallen to negligible levels.

Another thing worth noting is that for most of human history, child labor was a fact of life. In preindustrial civilizations, just about every child who didn't grow up in the upper class was working. It was only during the industrial revolution that there was a backlash against it. Today, the US and Western Europe can afford to educate children to prepare them for the occupations that will pay better than most of the occupations during the industrial revolution as well as beforehand.

Child labor actually does exist today in certain countries and is the most prevalent in the poorest of them. Most child labor today exists as unpaid family labor in rural areas (most likely for agriculture), the same kind that has existed for most of recorded history.
Click to expand...

Yep once 99% of kids worked. Capitalism generated enough wealth so they could stop working. In 1979 90% of Chinese kids worked. then they switched to capitalism and today 10% work.
 
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