Nothing Wrong With Child Labor In The United States

When their work do not affect their “health and personal development or interfere with their schooling,” they do not fit the negative notion of child labor (ILO, 1996). Children sometimes assist their parents with housework and take a part in building family businesses without their working hours affecting primary education. This is indeed a beneficial experience for children, because they learn to be productive within their communities. On the other hand, ILO (1996) applies the term child labor when work “is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful to children; and interferes with their schooling by; depriving them of the opportunity to attend school; obliging them to leave school prematurely; or requiring them to attempt to combine school attendance with excessively long and heavy work.” When child labor is engaged in enslavement, separation from families, and misplacement of children on the streets, ILO experts refer to it as the most extreme forms of child

Child labor is historically defined as “work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development” (Hansan, 2013). Legally, to be considered child labor, work must involve at least one of the following characteristics:

Before child labor was really a thing, there were strikes that the adult employers were holding because of low wages and other problems. The reason the employers chose to hire children instead of adults is because they would work for low wages, and also faster when it came to production and easier to train. The reason children have to go to work in the first place is to be able to aid their families in need. My question is how can children aid their families, when they can't even aid

Child labor is severely harmful to the children working. The definition of child labor is work done by a child (under 18 years old) that is harmful to the child’s health and development and probably interferes with their

The United States of America has always been deeply ideologically split on the idea of child labor. On the one side, many people believe that children benefit from long hard hours at work because it prepares them for the real world unlike the ability of school. Along with the growth of the child, they also believe that it would create large economical growth throughout the nation. Among the many people that believe this are two of hour founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin and Abraham Lincoln. On the other side of the argument, many people feel that children are to innocent to work for these long hours. They also tend to express how school and learning is much more vital to the child than manual labor, for it will help them much more in the long run. For example, in U.S. Supreme Court Case, Prince v. Massachusetts, the court defended child labor laws based on these exact reasons. The question as to which of these opinions is more valid is still commonly contemplated to this very day. In my opinion, the child should not be forced to work if they would rather spend their time studying, however a child that wants to work should not be lawfully unable to do so.

The immorality of child labor does not stop at not providing children their basic needs

There was a time when there was little child labor and people were forced to work all day for nothing more than a few dollars. Unfortunately, child labor has grown largely recently in the last years. Mainly in Africa and other poor countries, there is about one-fifth of the population of children working because they are poor and because people think it is free since they are children. Laboring children are working endlessly in many countries at toxic and dangerous gold mines. There is always a young child under eighteen that is working constantly to support his or her family in an underground gold mine. We may think that since we are living fine in our nice homes and eating great food that everybody is okay, but they are not and they get only a few dollars a day for working five times harder than you.

In the case of countries where child labor is considered a cultural norm, they do not see this as wrong as this is what they have always known. To them, how is child labor wrong if it has always been this way? Parents themselves most likely started working when they were children. Parents send their children to work with the belief that their children will learn a skill that will serve to help their future. Sending children to work is what they know; it’s what they were taught. The issue here lies in the fact that sending children to work isn’t helping their future; in fact it is harming it. In order to help their future children need to be attending school and to receive an education. “Child Labor: Issues, Causes, and Interventions,” written

“Child labor, including prostitution, mining, deep-sea fishing and drug-trafficking - should not be banned in poor countries, according to a study by the Royal Economic Society. Where there is a choice, the worst forms of child labor will usually be chosen because they pay better than other forms, considered 'non-harmful'," is what the report says. Firstly, child labor helps a child to learn the value of a dollar which he or she earns Along with this state of mind it have been noticed that child labor also have benefits. after working. By knowing the value of his earned dollar he become a responsible and a strong person as he grows. It helps a child in spending the money throughout his life. It helps a child to develop a strong work ethic. Secondly, if viewed from the economic point of view it is evident that child labor has decreased the wage rate and increases the profits. “They contribute to maintain the household and sometimes support the education of their younger sisters and brothers. It helps the children to come forward and fight to live in such an aggressive and selfish world.” (Russell). Children usually worked with their parents along their side in cotton factories, textile mills, sewing companies and other factories as well.

Currently there are 168 million child laborers in the world. More than half of them, 85 million, employed at hazardous jobs, according to the International Labour Organization. In the article “In Praise of Cheap Labor Bad jobs at bad wages are better than no jobs at all”, Paul Krugman Professor of economics at MIT, explains that child labor cannot just be wiped away like so many other distasteful practices. That it takes a perfect storm of economic success and low child labor numbers for a full transition to labor laws that ban it. Employers will agree to follow the law; similar to what happened in the U.S. in the 1930’s when Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act. This Act established standards for the basic minimum wage and overtime pay. It restricts the hours that children under age 16 can work and forbids the employment of children under age 18 in certain jobs deemed too dangerous. Krugman believes that many developing countries are not at a point where they can support a full ban on child labor. He gives the example of countries like “Indonesia [who are,] still so poor that progress is measured in terms of how much the average person gets to eat” (Krugman 4). Professor of economics at Yale university, Christopher Udry, in his article “Child Labor” provides a definition of child labor as “ the sacrifice of the future welfare of the child in exchange for additional income” (243). The causes of Child labor are not as simple as cultural or economic reasons, and a

Child labor is work for children, but also harmful to their growth physically, mentally or emotionally. Children were forced to work because of their family’s extremely poor condition where they may be needed to drop out of school. In most kinds of

Child Labor refers to the employment of children in any work that deprives of children of their childhood, Interferes with ability to attend regular school, and that is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful. Child Labor has existed to varying extents, through most of history. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, many children age 5-14 from poorer families still worked in Europe, The united states and various colonies of european powers. These children mainly worked in agriculture, home-based assembly operations, factories, mining and in services such as new boys. Some worked night shifts lasting 12 hours.

So they make the children think that what they are getting paid is significant and make them do very dangerous task that could kill them, if they ever try to refuse the employer would just threaten them or harass them in the end helping line the pockets for the employer and increasing poverty. Ultimately, adults lose jobs because of child labour. Children, as stated in the Ethical Trading Initiative are “cheaper to pay... [and] less likely to complain than adults”("A Global," n.d.). This states that children are less likely to question what they are doing for whatever money they can get and although there are child labour rights they are not strict enough for employers to care. Whereas adults have way more rights,can and will most likely try to fight against unfair working conditions and need to be paid more leading most employers to lay off more adult workers in favour of child labourers which in return reduce the amount of income for already poor families. In conclusion, child labour increase the amount of poverty in society by having children get paid less, children unable to fight back and the decrease of adult employment.

Child labor is a serious moral issue. There have been many controversial debates over whether it should be legal or not. Two different viewpoints on the subject exist. Many argue that child labor is morally wrong and that the children should not work, no matter how poverty stricken their family might be. Advocates and major corporations that support child labor argue that it is good because it gives poverty-stricken families a source of income.

Child labour not only prevents children from acquiring the skills and education they need for a better future, it also perpetuates poverty and affects national economies through losses in competitiveness, productivity and potential income. Withdrawing children from child labour, providing them with education and assisting their families with training and employment opportunities contribute directly to creating decent work for adults.