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Negative impact on child labor during the industrial revolution
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Industrialization and Child Labour
Child labour may well be morally repugnant but economists go beyond this and rationally argue for policies that will help children. Traditional arguments based on perfect competition are unhelpful and even suggest child labour may be a good thing. The argument is made persuasively in Krugman’s “In Praise of Cheap Labour”. Legislating higher wages for some group will quite likely reduce overall employment and make workers as a class worse off. Banning child labour may force children away from legitimate work to work that is off the books and not necessarily legal. Given that the sex trade is highly profitable and illegal it is easy to imagine this may well make children far worse off.
As the Industrial Revolution gathered pace thousands of factories sprang up all over the country. There were no laws relating to the running of factories as there had been no need for them before. As a result, dangerous machinery was used that could, and frequently did, cause serious injuries to workers. To add to these dangers, people were required to work incredibly long hours-often through the night. Perhaps one of the worst features of this new industrial age was the use of child labour. Very young children worked extremely long hours and could be severely punished for any mistakes. Arriving late for work could lead to a large fine and possibly a beating. Dozing at a machine could result in the accidental loss of a limb.
People began to realize how bad these conditions were in many factories and started to campaign for improvements. There was much resistance from factory owners who felt it would slow down the running of their factories and make their products more expensive. Many people also did not like t...
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.... According to CRY, child labour is not being addressed properly and the conviction rate is also low. It’s not that only the hospitality sector is employing children as workers, but household manufacturing sector and many other sectors are doing the same. Many organizations are trying to help child labour today, but not many are taking action. The problem is that the big corporations are making too much money and do not want to give in because they might loose some. They do not care about the rights of children, as long as they make them their products for cheap in large quantities.
I believe all of the major corporations, ex: Walmart and Nike, have been made to think this is better than them starving and dying on the street. They just want to make Americans happy by providing them with cheap materials so they can rake in the profit that we do not care about.
Children as young as young as five or seven years old worked in dangerous factories. Many times if the children fell asleep while on the job, they would slip and get stuck in the machines, resulting in death. Child labor in the late 1800’s was very unsafe and put the lives of young children in danger. The children worked in very dangerous conditions, most of the time it was factories. The conditions were very poor, the factories were dirty and unsafe for children. The children would work for up to sixteen hours with little to no pay.
Throughout history, children have always worked, either as apprentices or servants. However, child labor reached a whole new scale during the time period of the Industrial Revolution. Throughout the time frame of late 1800s-early 1900s, children worked long hours in dangerous factory conditions for very little wages. They were considered useful as laborers because their small stature allowed them to be cramped into smaller spaces, and they could be paid less for their services. Many worked to help support their families, and by doing so, they forwent their education. Numerous nineteenth century reformers and labor groups sought to restrict child labor and to improve working conditions.
During the Industrial Revolution, working conditions for children and adults alike were appalling, worked long hours for very little pay was the norm. For example, two boys worked on pushing a cart up and down a tunnel filled with coal for up to 19 hours and don’t see the light of day. Also in textile factories there were many machines with exposed parts run by unskilled labourers which led to many accidents. Poor working conditions including child labour has been in use for many centuries but in the industrial revolution the work conditions were particularly po...
Many businesses and factories hired children because they were easier to exploit; they could be paid less for more work in dangerous conditions. Plus, their small size made many children idea for working with small parts or fitting into small spaces. Children as young as four could be found working in factories, though most were between eight and twelve. Despite the economic gains made by the business that employed them, many children suffered in the workplace. The industrial setting caused many health problems for the children that, if they lived long enough, they would carry with them for the rest of their lives. Children were also more likely to face accidents in the workplace, often caused by fatigue, and many were seriously injured or killed. Despite efforts by reformers to regulate child labor, it wasn’t until the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 that children under 14 were prohibited from
Here many uneducated children, who do not have the financial resources to stay in school, migrate into big urban cities in search of jobs to make ends meet. The type of work that these young kids go and find are usually very labor intensive jobs such as textile, clothing, shoe, and toy manufacturing. Where they need little to no prior knowledge of working, and are put in long hours and very repetitive jobs. During my research I found that in China it is more common to see young girls working either in workshops or in the street, than it is for young boys. This is due to the fact that girls in China are not forced by their parents to complete their studies. The government of China does have laws and rules against the use of child labor in factories. There are special agencies that specifically go to each and every workshop or factory every year in search of child labor. The only problem with these laws and agencies is that they are not very enforcing. When an employer is caught using child labor, whether it is forced, excessive, or in hazardous conditions they are simply given a fine that they must pay to the government, and are forced to return the child home immediately. This causes for big private companies to simply keep hiring and hiring cheap child labor and only paying a fine without seriously facing the consequences. Employers usually also close their doors during the day, to not let any
Hutchins, B.I. and A. Harrison. 1903. A History of Factory Legislation. London: P.S. King and Son. [References to 1966 ed. By London: Cass.]
The child laborer can work in different fields. Some are engaged in agricultural labor, manufacturing, mining, domestic service, types of construction and also begging on the streets. Some are engaged in more dangerous conditions such as armed conflicts, commercial sexual exploitation, drug trafficking and also organized begging. These forms deprive children from freedom and human rights. Moreover, they certainly engender harmful effects. Children may receive no payment; they just take advantage of being fed and having a place where to sleep. They don’t have any protection in case they get sick or injured.
Imagine waking up at five in the morning to walk over a mile to a factory where you work until noon where you get a half hour break for lunch, then it’s back to work until nine or ten at night, when you are finally allowed to go home and you are only eight years old. Today that seems unimaginable, but during the early 19th century it was the everyday life of thousands of children whose ages range from as young as five until you died. During the Industrial Revolution many children were required to work dangerous jobs to help their families.
It is more common in societies where people are uneducated or who live in a lower class society that tends to force children to work. Despite laws forbidding the practice of forced child labor, the number of child victims is increasing everywhere. More needs to be done to enforce laws to protect children from this cruel life. To begin with, forcing children to work starts a vicious cycle that will affect future generations. “According to UNICEF, there are an estimated 158 million children aged 5 to 14 engaged in child labor worldwide.”
For example, factory workers were expected to work 14-16 hour days, six days a week. The dusty, dirty, unlit mills along with few break times made working there a living hell. “Breaker boys suffered from chronic throat trouble and respiratory illnesses that were caused by inhaling coal dust. Above ground machinery, particularly coal crushers, were dangerously loud. If a breaker boy worked long hours around the coal crusher he often suffered from hearing loss (Wagner). Due to the fact that there were no safety laws in place, ear plugs and masks were not used. In fact, no safety equipment was. The dangerous machines with unprotected parts made children susceptible to injury and death. If someone were to get injured, they were immediately fired and not paid compensation for their health care. “If a boy was caught wearing gloves, the boss would beat him. A skin condition that miners termed “Red tips” was brought about by prolonged contact with sulfur from the coal. Breaker boys’ fingers often became cracked, bloody, and swollen from sorting (Wagner)....
While we, as Americans, are currently living in the most advanced civilization up to this time, we tend to disregard problems of exploitation and injustice to nations of lesser caliber. Luckily, we don't have to worry about the exploitation of ourchildren in factories and sweet shops laboring over machines for countless hours. We, in the United States, would never tolerate such conditions. For us, child labor is a practice that climaxed and phased away during and then after the industrial revolution. In 1998 as we approach the new millenium, child labor cannot still bea reality, or can it? Unfortunately, the employment and exploitation of children inthe work force is still alive and thriving. While this phenomenon is generally confined to third world developing nations, much of the responsibility for its existence falls to economicsuper powers, such as the United States, which supply demand for the cheaply produced goods. While our children are nestled away safely in their beds, other children half way around the world are working away to the hum of machinery well into the night.
The term ‘child labor’ is used to define any work that is mentally, physically and morally harmful to children, and interferes with their education (ILO). Children have been used as a labor force throughout most of our history. After decades of struggle aimed to combat the massive employment of child labor, the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989 ratified that children have the right to develop harmoniously their personality in a loving family environment. Moreover, it recognized the right of the children to be protected from exploitation, and any form of labor that jeopardizes their physical, mental and moral well-being. However, child labor is still eagerly diffuse in developing countries,
Child labor is a pervasive problem throughout the global economy, especially in the markets of developing countries. With over 90% of the total child labor market employed in the rural areas of India and Africa, largely due to lack of enforcement. It is argued that something has to be done. Although the majority of people are ethically appalled by child labor, and against the exploitation of children. Is the worldwide eradication of the worst forms of child labor really a feasible alternative? To answer this question people have to take into account a variety of factors involving both the economic and social costs, as well as have a firm understanding of the situations people are faced with in these underdeveloped countries.
Presently, about 11 crores children of age group 9 to 14 , are working as child labours. This makes 10% of our total population. All these children have missed out pleasant moments of their childhood and ultimately they will remain away from the mainstream of social development. If we as a society ignore these facts and neglect this situation, it may prove to be harmful to all of us.
Child Labor had begun around the era of the Industrial Revolution. As the world was becoming more dependent on the workings of machines and all of the advancements the revolution was bringing along, more workers had to be employed in these massive factories in order to keep them running, and to handle smaller day-to-day tasks. Children around the ages of four or five would be found working in these factories, the conditions in these factories were incredibly dangerous, and much of the time, fatal. Looking at child labor in this way, many countries have deemed it a...