-=:{[ Child Labour ]}:=-

[LSJ]

The question: is child labour immoral?

Some stuff to think about:
It provides poor families with another source of income that they would not receive had child labour been outlawed. Many of the kids cannot go to school anyway, so instead they go to work helping their family to eat for the week.

On the other hand, maybe children should be going to school rather than working, and it might be a better idea to get funding for their schooling at the cost of sacrificing funding for other things. They will not have the chance to progress in society if all they did was sewing and never learned their mathematics and other academic skills. They can find a job later in life, but not outside the villages. However, most don't, even with education provided to them by their local schools, since the vast majority of jobs in their area are reliant on trade skills rather than education.

On a related note to the first point, children are paid very poorly. Much less than anyone would consider working for in any developed country. Their work may do very little in the way of supporting the family. Also, injuries and illness, sometimes fatal, are not uncommon among those children who do work in poor conditions.
+ But, are the wages and poor conditions an attribute of child labour, or a result of child labour being done incorrectly due to greed of corporations and a lack of laws on the matter?

Perhaps child labour is a good thing, but it just isn't being done right or maybe, allowing child labour has terrible consequences like pressure placed on the children by their family to earn the money, costing them dearly in other ways like their "childhood" and education.

Thoughts?

[Simetrical]

The idea that child labor is intrinsically wrong is laughable. It was ubiquitous before relatively modern times. All children would do as much work as they were able. Boys would get apprenticed before the age of ten and work all day six days a week (probably quite a bit more than eight hours a day) while learning a trade. Even noble children in medieval Europe would be sent to become pages and squires before they reached anything like the modern concept of adulthood, and that involved a fair amount of serious work, AFAIK.

Child labor was only outlawed within the last century or so. In a more technology-oriented society, children need to learn, not work. But in developing nations it might be necessary for every member of the household to contribute a considerable amount of work to keep food on the table, whatever they're able to do. Heck, I know a family here in the US (of fairly stretched resources, I guess) where the young children worked illegally after school to help support it.

So children will work, one way or another, in poorer societies. There's nothing wrong with that, and there's nothing wrong with Westerners employing them rather than locals. If they take Western jobs, it's because we offer them better opportunities than the local jobs do. It's not "exploitation" to make a fair trade for cheap labor, just because more educated and more accessible labor elsewhere would be more expensive. It's just good business for all involved.

[CtrlAltDe1337]

I agree with Sim. Child labor is not (morally) wrong. But, child labor in recent times occured under very poor conditions and bad wages in the factories and thats why public opinon is against it. I guess its just more easily abused than older ppl working.

[jankren]

For me the problem with child labor is not the fact children are working, but the fact that some parents in poor places force their children to work while they stay at home doing nothing.

[kev-o]

A laborer of any age deserves rights while working, whether it be how long to work, the saftey of the work place, compensation for damages etc. But children should go to school first until they are 16-16 years old. If they want to drop out they can do it at that age, but they have to get a job.

[Sidmen]

A laborer of any age deserves rights while working, whether it be how long to work, the saftey of the work place, compensation for damages etc.

Agreed

But children should go to school first until they are 16-16 years old.

To learn what? Many places need menial labor - not much need for high school education if you're job choices are limited to sewing and farming.

If they want to drop out they can do it at that age, but they have to get a job.

What if they're rich, and have 50 or so million dollars from their parents? Should they be forced to get a job for no reason?

[kev-o]

To learn what? Many places need menial labor - not much need for high school education if you're job choices are limited to sewing and farming.

There are things in this world that even a 15-16 year old has to know before getting a real world job, such as how to file their taxes and other technical aspects on how the world works in the finanace realm.

What if they're rich, and have 50 or so million dollars from their parents? Should they be forced to get a job for no reason?

Well if they want a Paris Hilton life, then thats their choice. If I was a parent who was that rich I would give most of it to charity and have my kids go to school and get a good education for themselves and go on to get a good job. But thats me.

[Sidmen]

There are things in this world that even a 15-16 year old has to know before getting a real world job, such as how to file their taxes and other technical aspects on how the world works in the finanace realm.

Assuming that you live in a 1st world country. Most people (and children) simply don't have that luxury. Which is the main reason to discuss its morality.

Well if they want a Paris Hilton life, then thats their choice. If I was a parent who was that rich I would give most of it to charity and have my kids go to school and get a good education for themselves and go on to get a good job. But thats me.

Meh, If I was that rich I'd hope they never have to work hard. Teach them how to manage my company and just leave it at that - most of the work should already be done by me.

[Simetrical]

For me the problem with child labor is not the fact children are working, but the fact that some parents in poor places force their children to work while they stay at home doing nothing.

Do they? I hadn't heard that before.

A laborer of any age deserves rights while working, whether it be how long to work, the saftey of the work place, compensation for damages etc. But children should go to school first until they are 16-16 years old. If they want to drop out they can do it at that age, but they have to get a job.

Education is not necessarily practical for everyone in the world. In some places there may not be free public schools for them to go to, for starters. They may also need money to, say, avoid starving to death.

There are things in this world that even a 15-16 year old has to know before getting a real world job, such as how to file their taxes and other technical aspects on how the world works in the finanace realm.

Doesn't matter if your life is going to be taken up by, say, subsistence agriculture. You need to know how to grow food, and when the tax man comes you give him what he says you owe, which you might not be able to effectively contest anyway if it's more than he's supposed to take (not everywhere has a functional justice system, or for that matter a firm tax code).

Note that I'm not implying that any of the above conditions are typical in the third world. They're certainly typical in some times and places where child labor was common, e.g., medieval Europe. I'm more arguing against the attitude that child labor is generally wrong. Whether it's wrong in particular third-world countries today is a somewhat trickier question, and I don't claim to know the facts about such places.

[removeduser_487563287433]

What irritates me about child labour is that clothes and shoes are still so damn expensive.

I mean what the hell are their overheads like?

[Ummagumma]

I mean what the hell are their overheads like?

They have phenomenal profit margins to maintain...

[Thanatos]

They have phenomenal profit margins to maintain...

Yeah, heaven forbid the company loses a little bit of money to BETTER THE COMMUNITY or some other such nonsense.

[Simetrical]

What irritates me about child labour is that clothes and shoes are still so damn expensive.

I mean what the hell are their overheads like?

They have to pay for materials, I suppose. Advertising. Lots of managers. I don't know, why don't you look at their corporate income statement or whatever it's called? Most of these companies are publicly traded.

They have phenomenal profit margins to maintain...

Profit, yes, to be reinvested. A cardinal rule of big business is that almost all profit is reinvested in the business, minus possibly a couple percent skimmed off by the shareholders. Almost no profit goes to line rich executives' pockets, it goes to open new factories and hire more people and create new product lines.

Which I realize you didn't deny, but it's worth repeating incessantly whenever the word "profit" comes up, because nobody seems to realize that. Wanting more profit is somehow equated with greed on the part of the executives at the expense of everyone else. It benefits the executives, who like anyone get bonuses if their employer thinks they do a good job, but it also benefits everyone else who works at the company or buys from the company.

[LoZz]

if a child wants to work then i have no problem with that provideing the job is suitable, the enviroment is suitable and the pay and conditions are suitable.

school should take priority.

[sephodwyrm]

occured under very poor conditions and bad wages in the factories and thats why public opinon is against it. I guess its just more easily abused than older ppl working.

AGREED.
Child labor tend to be semi-slave labor because a Child often does not understand the basics of work contract, work safety regulations and have little or no way to protect themselves against abusive employers.

Child labor in third world countries get abused way more than child labor in first world countries (and God forbids it, given that children in third world countries are justified to slave for children in first world countries...that's what I gleaned off from the sayings of other members).