The Commercial of Child Labour - Essay Example

Development Economics: In developing countries child labour seems to be immune to legislative interventions such as banning child labour or compulsory school education. Why is this so? Can financial incentives alleviate child labour? What other measures can be taken? Discuss the efficacy of these measures with empirical evidence. Child labour is convenient, cheap, compliant and dependable. It depresses wages and could easily be replenished. That is why recent statistics estimate that as many as 250 million children are employed in developing countries, with at least half of them full time. (Das 2001, p. 25) It is a disturbing phenomenon, which, in the wake of globalization, has been escalated into a full blown international crisis. Various studies point to several factors responsible for child labour. These include lack of education, poverty, insufficient legislation and, if there are in place, their poor enforcement, family background, culture, exploitation and backward technologies, among others. The economic factor in the problem seems to take the most responsibility as statistics and literature on the subject have shown - child labour is prevalent in low-income countries. Hence, we will examine the issue in this perspective. The Economics of Child Labour Basically child labour constitutes a market with its own buyers and sellers coming together where such labour is exchanged for a price and, therefore, subject to the laws of supply and demand. According to Sayan Chakrabarty, the market includes those who provide child labour, such as households the children live in, and those who utilize it and that together both sides influence the incidence of child labour – its amount and productivity. (p. 17) To quote: The more pressure exerted on the supply side (i.e. the more households offer child labor), the less productive and remunerated this labor will tend to be. The more pressure is exerted in the demand side (i.e. the more uses for child labor are generated), the more productive and remunerated it will be. (p. 18) The Basu-Van model examines the relationship of poverty to child labour more specifically. In this model, it is argued that labour markets in low income economies are often characterized by multiple equilibria. This means that there are several possibilities in its incidence. One possibility is the prevalence of low (adult) wages, which are not enough to feed a family, and in such situations parents are compelled to send their children to work. (p. 412-27) The labour market equilibrium in this case involves participation of children along with the adults. Basu and Van call it a bad equilibrium. An added example is that in the event of unemployment of the primary wage earner, it may cause secondary earners, such as women and children, to look for work. In light of these, we see that one of the important theoretical issues in the multiple equilibria model is the effect of poverty to the level of parental altruism. Here, when child labour is essential to economic survival, children will work. But when family income rises above some threshold level of subsistence, children are withdrawn from the labour market. And so, within the framework of household economy, poverty is widely acclaimed as the first cause of child labour. Government Role A state’s role in terms of legislations is also pivotal in encouraging the proliferation of child labour in many countries. For instance, there is the absence of minimum wage laws which allows unscrupulous employers to impose wage system based on solely on productivity and the piece-rate wages. (Burra, p. 255) Unfortunately, children are the ones more prone to these kinds of work than more discerning adults. Unless this issue is resolved, children will continue to be exploited. The previously mentioned governmental flaw also brings us to legislations in place which fail to abate the incidence of child labour and, on the one hand, to the creation of statutes that will outlaw child labour in many countries. It seems to have some form of legislative immunity that it cannot be abolished, or the existing legislations are not strictly enforced. Also, amid the closer scrutiny from the international community, trade groups and global organizations, developing countries usually resort to rhetoric or legislate flawed statutes that in the end, child labour still proliferate. For example, the UN has raised concerns regarding disparities between the Labor Code and the Armenian Civil Code, which have conflicting definition of minors who require parent’s consent in order to engage in employment contracts and the concept that children are not required to secure parental consent in small contracts. (p. 27-28) Analysis Child labour is unarguably low-priced in the labour market in contrast to the relatively high-priced adult labour, thus it is much preferred for companies in developing countries who want to save overhead cost but achieve high productivity. Through the years it has become deeply entrenched in the Third World societies that their respective elites, business societies, and the governments itself tolerate it in their midst. To cite an example, the Human Rights Watch (1996) stated that the Indian society developed a set of myths around child labour to the point of justifying its existence: Bonded labor and child labor in India are inevitable. They are caused by poverty. They represent the natural order of things, and it is not possible to change them by force; they must evolve slowly toward eradication. (p. 5) Child labour hinders human development, reducing future earnings for the children and aggregate growth for an economy. For one, it is the most obvious, almost definitional, negative effect on schooling attainment. In line with this, the World Bank and Warrick Smith (2004) elaborated: Children… perform tasks that require no particular skills and develop no human capital. Cheap child labor, if combined with poor investment conditions reduces the incentives for firms to invest in new technology that has higher productivity potential but requires more skilled workers. (p. 141) One of the measures being proposed in order to prevent child labour are trade sanctions and consumer boycotts. However, this solution is not entirely problem-free. For instance, according to Dilip Das, “trade sanctions generally hit hard and the tendency is to move the production of the product in question into the formal sector, which is known to have worse working conditions than the formal sector. Besides, trade sanctions may be implemented in such a manner that they work as protectionist measures.” (p. 25) For example, child workers, say, in the carpet industry or the garment industry are driven to other sectors, some of which are more dismal such as prostitution or welding. Indeed, a UNICEF study found that between 5,000 to 7,000 young girls in Bangladesh moved from the carpet industry to prostitution as a result of similar policies. (Pizzuti & Franzini 2000, p. 118) Furthermore, one should remember that only close to 5% of the children employed worldwide work in the export sector. (Norberg 2003, p. 198) Thus, the international community, by focusing primarily on the export sector, has sent the unfortunate message that only child labour in export industries must be addressed. The problem of child labour is caused by development issues and it exists in all low-income developing economies. Therefore, it calls for domestic policy response which contains fine-tuned domestic strategies that would resolve the issue of child labour in a manner most suitable to its own circumstances. One of the strategies, however, which could be applied to all cases is pointed out by Neera Burra (1998), who stated: “If there is at all a blueprint for tackling the problem of child labour, it is education.” (p. 256) Here, it is underscored that education is even more effective than banning child labour since such bans are not enforced in many developing countries and when they are, they force students into more dangerous forms of work as pointed out elsewhere in this paper. Insisting on mandatory primary education and strict family norms, will help address the child labour problem. For instance, in India some concrete steps were undertaken with successful results and these include: Setting up residential camps that offer fast-paced education requirements of older children as well as bridge courses for younger children who are working. Strict enforcement of family planning norms. Community Education with the aim of raising social awareness. Strict enforcement of labour laws. Development of motivation programs, vocational training as well as strategies such as free meals in school to entice children from poor families. (Bhargava, p. 130) Given the difficulty of mobilizing the opinions of several nations, it is not surprising that most of the action seeking to address this global dilemma thus far has been in the area of extra-national effort. Despite the rhetoric to the contrary, these have frequently and increasingly been used as weapons of protections for industries practicing child labour. As this paper suggested reforms that promote stronger economic growth are still fundamental to combating child labour. This has been highlighted in the case of countries such as Vietnam, in which strong economic growth in the 1990s led to a significant rise in poor families’ wealth, reducing the number of children in the workforce by 28%. (World Bank & Warrick, p. 141) References Basu, Kaushik, and Van, Pham Hoang, The Economics of Child Labor, American Economic Review, 1998. 88. Bhargava, Pramila, The Elimination of Child Labour: Whose Responsibility? SAGE, 2003. Burra, Neera, Born to Work: Child Labour in India, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Chakrabarty, Sayan, Does Social Labeling Displace Child Labor and Increase Child Schooling? Cuvilier Verlag, not dated. Das, Dilip, Global Trading System at the Crossroad: A Post-Seattle Perspective, London: Routledge, 2001. DIANE Publishing, The Department of Labors 2001 Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor, Washington: DIANE Publishing, 2001. Human Rights Watch Asia, The Small Hands of Slavery: Bonded child Labor in India, Human Rights Watch, 1996. Norberg, Johan, In Defense of Global Capitalism, Washington D.C.: Cato Institute, 2003. Pizzuti, Felice and Franzini, Roberto, Globalization, Institutions and Social Cohesion, Springer, 2000. World Bank and Warrick, Smith, Word Development Report, Washington D.C.: World Bank Publications, 2004. Read More