Essay About Child Labour
When raising children, it is important to teach them good values and how to be successful in the real world; which is why most parents allow their children to apply for a job or allow them to perform minimal tasks at home at such a young age. In a paper titled “Child Labor in the World Economy”, which was written by a professor of political science at Albion College, the International Labor Organization (ILO) states, “Economic activity by children that is appropriate to age, safe and consonant with a child's education, is perfectly acceptable…light age-appropriate work may even help children 'learn to take responsibility”(Perusek). At the same time though, there is a limit to how much you can push a child to do such labor; especially if the type of labor was meant to be conducted by adults. This action is known as child labor, which is a very commonly known term but has had little meaning to society as time has passed; which is why this is such a crucial topic because there are children that could be facing extreme child labor just as there are children facing extreme hunger. In the paper titled, “Child Labor in the World Economy”, it explains how an Indonesian humanitarian group conducted a five-year investigation on the labor environment and the workers; as a result, they found that “…more than 75 percent of more than 8,000 employees in the industry are children, one-third of whom are under 14. The report puts the number at least 5,400 children…”(Perusek). Glenn Perusek prioritized this information because he believes that the economy or any aspect of economics plays a role in child labor. This claim is able to be supported through the previous piece of evidence; when we analyze the country of Indonesia we see very clearly that they are not an economically stable country. As a result of low economic stability in certain countries, it is ultimately causing an increase in child labor. Unfortunately, child labor is affecting daily life because it creates economic instability in a household, and it decreases economic growth and how we socially develop.
Economic Instability in a Household
Child labor is affecting daily life because of its correlation to the economic instability of a household. A household is just a term used to describe a family that dwells in the same place; evidently, your household is part of your daily life. Now, child labor comes into connection because a household consists of children that may be experiencing it; the reasons can vary but we will specifically focus on the economic side of things. For there to be a connection between these individual topics, we will examine how child labor is affecting the economic status of your household which is a major part of your daily life. Even though parents allow their children to take place in child labor as a means of survival, it will ultimately have negative implication in the long run. This is because their labor will have to compete with school and if school is not a priority then the chance of them becoming impoverd in the future increases. According to “The Economic Impact of Child Labour”, a paper written by Rossana Galli who does her research in Labor Economics and Development Economics, collaborates with the International Labor Organization and has a PhD in economics; she states “…children sent to work do not accumulate (or under-accumulate) human capital, missing the opportunity to enhance their productivity and future earnings capacity. This lowers the wage of their future…In this way poverty and child labour is passed on from generation to generation”(Galli 9). With that being said, it has also been brought up that since child labor is usually accepted by parents because of low economic status in the household, that it provides an extra revenue that allows the household to be economically stable. In the Journal of Economic Perspectives, “Child Labor In the Global Economy”, written by Eric V. Edmonds and Nina Pavcnik, it states that “…children only work when the family cannot meet its subsistence needs”(209). Eric V. Edmonds, who is a Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College, and Nina Pavcnik, who is the Niehaus Family Professor in International Studies for the Economics Department at Dartmouth College. Although parents allowing their children to perform child labor is wrong, they sometimes have no choice because of their families economic instability; and if this issue is not corrected, then it will become part of and affect their daily lives.
Economic and Social Development
Child labor may seem to have a weak correlation to economic and social development, but in fact it plays a role in decreasing economic and social development in which is very important in our daily lives. In the research study “The Economic Impact of Child Labor”, Rossana Galli states that, “Child labour has a negative long run impact on the well being of the family also through increased fertility. In fact child labour lowers the perceived cost of having children thereby boosting fertility. Larger family size in turn fuels the need for the income provided by children, generates child labour supply and impedes the education of the future generation of parents”(11). This piece of evidence states exactly what was said above by a credible person, nonetheless; to break this down, we see that the claim is that child labor is having a negative impact on a family by increasing fertility. This increased fertility will create a larger family which will eventually to more children experiencing child labor and education decreasing as a priority. This goes back to economic and social development because although there will be more revenue because of your children, we still have that factor of future impoverishment from generation to generation, as brought up before. Not only that but there is no guarantee that there will be enough revenue to take care of your household; which will lead to no economic development and a social status of a never ending impoverd cycle.
Conclusion
Child labor, as all agreed, is an issue that needs to be taken care of because of its economic effects in our daily lives and we need to be able to help these children that are facing extreme child labor. The problem though is the fact that even though some may use child labor for the wrong reasons, there are real families that have to allow their children to participate in this because, it is for a means of survival. As a result, if we just restrict child labor without looking ahead to what other conflicts it might cause, then we will make matters worse. As a solution, it should be proposed that we set up a program with the major banks in the world right now, that will first be provided in third world countries (they are the main source of child labor), where we allow a certain amount of money to be given to certain families facing serious economic instability, and can only be given a certain amount of times; which must be used to correct that families economic instability. The implications to this solution is that it will decrease child labor that is being done as a means of survival; it will also increase economic growth in the parent country because of the revenue and interest rates. The limitations of this is that this is a long term solution, meaning it could take a long period of time before it begins to show any results, and can be taken advantage of because it is money that is being given if not careful; but of course this solution is not perfect, but it is currently the best.
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