Child Labor, designation formerly applied to the
practice of employing young children in factories, now used to denote the
employment of minors generally, especially in work that may interfere with
their education or endanger their health. Throughout the ages and in all
cultures children joined with their parents to work in the fields, in the
marketplace, and around the home as soon as they were old enough to perform
simple tasks. The use of child labor was not regarded a social problem until
the introduction of the factory system.
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II
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HISTORY IN GREAT BRITAIN
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During the latter part of the 18th century in
Britain, owners of cotton mills collected orphans and children of poor parents
throughout the country, obtaining their services merely for the cost of
maintaining them. In some cases children five and six years of age were forced
to work from 13 to 16 hours a day.
Social reformers attempted as early as 1802 to obtain
legislative restrictions against the worst features of the child-labor system,
but little was done even to enforce existing laws limiting work hours and
establishing a minimum age for employment. Conditions as bad as those imposed
on pauper children rapidly developed in enterprises employing nonpauper
children. Often with the approval of political, social, and religious leaders,
children were permitted to labor in hazardous occupations such as mining. The
resultant social evils included illiteracy, further impoverishment of poor
families, and a multitude of diseased and crippled children.
Popular agitation for reform steadily increased. The
first significant British legislation was enacted in 1878, when the minimum age
of employees was raised to 10 years and employers were required to restrict
employment of children between the ages of 10 and 14 to alternate days or
consecutive half days. In addition to making every Saturday a half holiday,
this legislation also limited the workday of children between 14 and 18 years
of age to 12 hours, with an intermission of 2 hours for meals and rest.
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III
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CHILD LABOR IN THE UNITED STATES
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Meanwhile the industrial system developed in other
countries, bringing with it abuses of child labor similar to those in Britain.
In the early years of the 19th century children between the ages of 7 and 12
years made up one-third of the workforce in U.S. factories. The shortage of
adult male laborers, who were needed for agriculture, contributed to the
exploitation of child laborers. In addition, many adults held puritanical ideas
regarding the evils of idleness among children, and so cooperated with
employers, helping them recruit young factory hands from indigent families.
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A
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Early Legislation
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The earliest feature of the factory system that
caused concern among community leaders was the high rate of illiteracy among
child laborers. The first effective step toward legislation governing the
education of these children was taken in 1836 when the Massachusetts
Legislature adopted a law prohibiting the employment of any child under 15
years of age who had received less than three months of schooling in the
previous year. In 1848 Pennsylvania became the first state to regulate the age
levels of youth employed in silk, cotton, or woolen mills by establishing a
minimum age of 12. Several other states also established minimum-age
requirements, but none of the laws passed made provisions for establishing
proof of the child's age or for enforcement.
The length of the workday for children was the
next feature of the factory system to be regulated by legislation. By 1853
several states had adopted a ten-hour workday for children under 12 years of
age. Despite these restrictions, the number of children in industry increased
greatly in the United States after the American Civil War, when industrial
expansion resulted in unprecedented demand for workers. By the end of the 19th
century nearly one-fifth of all American children between the ages of 10 and 16
were gainfully employed. By 1910, however, as the result of the
public-enlightenment activities of various organizations, notably the National
Child Labor Committee, the legislatures of several states had enacted
restrictive legislation that led to sharp reductions in the number of children
employed in industry.
Because of the lack of uniformity in
child-labor standards established in the various states, a condition that
placed industries in states with relatively high standards in a disadvantageous
competitive position, the U.S. Congress, in 1916, passed a law that set a
national minimum age of 14 in industries producing nonagricultural goods for
interstate commerce or for export. In 1918, however, the U.S. Supreme Court
ruled, in a 5-4 decision, that the legislation was an unconstitutional infringement
on personal freedom. The following year, the Congress tried another strategy to
establish protection for child workers through taxation of employers. But in
1922 the Child Labor Tax Law, as it was known, was ruled unconstitutional for
being overtly “prohibitory and regulatory.” In 1924 both houses of Congress
passed an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, empowering Congress to limit,
regulate, and prohibit the labor of persons under 18 years of age. The number
of state legislatures that ratified the proposed amendment was 28, or 8 less
than the 36 then required.
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B
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Federal Legislation
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Despite the reluctance of state legislators to ratify
the child-labor amendment, legislative attempts to deal with the problem
nationally continued, notably during the administration of President Franklin
D. Roosevelt. The National Industrial Recovery Act, passed by Congress in 1933,
established a minimum age of 16 for workers in most industries. In hazardous
industries a minimum age level of 18 was established. This law contributed to a
substantial decrease in the number of young workers, but the Supreme Court
ruled the act unconstitutional in 1935 (see New Deal). In the next year
Congress passed the Walsh-Healey Act, which prohibits firms producing goods
under federal government contract from employing boys and girls under 16 years
of age.
The next important legislation on the problem was
the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, better known as the Federal Wage and Hour
Law. This act was declared constitutional in 1941 by the Supreme Court, which
thereby overruled its former child-labor decision under a more liberal
interpretation of the commerce clause of the Constitution (Article I, Section
8). The Fair Labor Standards Act, amended in 1949, applies to all workers
engaged in interstate or foreign commerce. Under the child-labor provisions of
the act, minors 16 years of age and over may be employed in any occupation that
has not been judged hazardous by the secretary of labor. The minimum age for
work in industries classified as hazardous is 18. No minimum age is set for
nonhazardous agricultural employment after school hours and during vacation.
Minors 14 and 15 years of age may be employed in a variety of nonmanufacturing,
nonmining, and nonhazardous occupations outside school hours and during
vacations for limited hours and under other specified conditions of work.
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C
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State Legislation
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Every state today has child-labor laws. In most
states employment of minors under 16 in factories and during school hours is
prohibited. Other provisions include a 40-hour workweek, prohibition of night
work, and work permits for minors under 18. Children working on farms are not
completely protected by federal and state laws, which make no provisions for
nonhazardous farm work outside school hours. The children of migratory workers,
who move from harvest to harvest across the United States, are usually not
subject to state laws because they do not fulfill residency requirements, and
they are often unable to attend local schools, which have no provisions for
seasonal increases in school enrollment. Other children exempted from federal
and state labor laws are children employed as actors and performers in radio,
television, and motion pictures, as newspaper deliverers and sales personnel,
or as part-time workers at home.
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IV
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INTERNATIONAL PROBLEMS
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In the early 21st century, child labor remains
a serious problem in many parts of the world. Studies carried out in 1979, the
International Year of the Child, show that more than 50 million children below
the age of 15 were working in various jobs often under hazardous conditions.
Many of these children live in underdeveloped countries in Latin America,
Africa, and Asia. Their living conditions are crude and their chances for
education minimal. The meager income they bring in, however, is necessary for
the survival of their families. Frequently, these families lack the basic
necessities of life—adequate food, decent clothing and shelter, and even water
for bathing.
In some countries industrialization has created
working conditions for children that rival the worst features of the 19th-century
factories and mines. In India, for example, some 20,000 children work 16-hour
days in match factories.
Child-labor problems are not, of course, limited to
developing nations. They occur wherever poverty exists in Europe and the United
States. A growing concern in recent years has been the increase in prostitution
among youngsters in urban centers.
The most important efforts to eliminate child-labor
abuses throughout the world come from the International Labor Organization
(ILO), founded in 1919 and now a special agency of the United Nations. The
organization has introduced several child-labor conventions among its members,
including a minimum age of 16 years for admission to all work, a higher minimum
age for specific types of employment, compulsory medical examinations, and
regulation of night work. In the late 20th century the ILO added to this list
the worst forms of child labor, including slavery, prostitution, debt bondage
(the practice of requiring children to work off loans made to their parents),
and forced military service. The ILO, however, does not have the power to
enforce these conventions; it depends on voluntary compliance of member
nations.
