The Case for Child Labour

Europe is not climbing out of this recession easily. The German economy just tipped back into decline, Greece is on the brink of default, and the big French Bank Societe General has publically expressed its opinion that the collapse of the Euro is “inevitable.”

This fits with the thesis of our last post here, that the real problem is the demographic decline. It is worse in Europe than in America. Europe is looking more and more like Japan in 1997: while the crisis might have begun elsewhere, the underlying demographics may prevent Europe, like Japan, from ever rising from its knees.

Time for some creative thinking, surely. We cannot afford to feed any sacred cattle. Everyone is talking about ending pensioned retirement. Sure; but one other possible solution occurs to me; and perhaps a less painful one. Perhaps we have been looking at the wrong end of the spectrum. Perhaps the better option is to end the child labour laws.

This would do three useful things. First, it would expand the active labour force at a stroke, directly and more or less immediately fixing the essential immediate problem of a labour shortage. Second, it would make childbearing and childrearing more attractive: instead of representing a huge loss of income for parents, children could be self-supporting, as children are in less-developed, less urban countries; or were in Europe until the last century. This might reverse the drop in fertility, and so fix the underlying problem. Third, assuming that children would be paid lower wages, it boosts the competitiveness and so the overall economy of the developed world.

Of course, you are horrified. I know this sounds to many as heinous a suggestion as Jonathan Swift’s original “Modest Proposal.” Many are actively campaigning against child labour in the Third World.

But do we really, in this, have the children’s best interests at heart? Were child labour laws in the first place a matter of protecting children; or of boosting the price of labour? As laws were introduced to prevent child labour, and as part of the same movement, laws were also passed to prevent the employment of women. Both were thought to be humanitarian; making either work outside the home was considered exploitation. Assuming we were wrong in thinking this about women, the point logically applies to children too.

Certainly my wife, who grew up in the Third World, deeply resents the efforts of Western “do-gooders” to try to end the “exploitation of children” in the imaginary sweatshops of Asia. “What are the children supposed to do? Starve to death?” Even if literal starvation is not an issue, I think it would be rather better for the health of any child to find paying work than to be aborted.

Or if we allow them to live, being forced to sit on their butts all day in school. You might want to argue that working is not fun for children--but do they usually enjoy school? No. School is unpaid labour, and it is mandatory. Try that with anyone else, and the proper term is slavery.

Do children hate work? Not so much. Those of us who, when young, had a paper route, or every now and then ran a lemonade stand, or had some money-making hobby, I submit, remember this experience with considerable fondness. Nothing beats the feeling of holding your own earned money in your hand. You want self-esteem? That’s self-esteem.

Would we, by allowing children to work, be limiting their future? I’m sure that argument will be made. But is it correct? How much schooling these days ends up being mostly babysitting? We discover that children who are home-schooled are able to cover the same material in about half the time. It follows that children in general could just as easily cover everything they are learning now in half the time, and have half their time free for earning. Do farm kids suffer academically from having their “chores”?

Working half-time could itself be a vital part of a proper education. The world of work changes much faster than the hidebound, bureaucratic world of school. By the time a kid graduates from college, with fourteen or sixteen years of schooling behind them, but no work experience, most of what they have learned is bound to be irrelevant. Had they been working, at least some of their working knowledge would still be current. We must, in any case, replace the current model with one of lifelong learning.

Over their twelve or sixteen years of schooling, it gets hard for some students—indeed, hard for the system—to keep their focus on the relevance of it all. With concurrent work experience, one would have a constant reality check. And anyone who goes to college, as is increasingly required of almost anyone, is all dressed up with nowhere to go for another five or six or more years after that. The frustration of this, I suspect, is what drives the angst, the utter hell, of modern adolescence—which was never seen as a traumatic period in the past, or in non-Western societies. If this enforced poverty and apartheid from the real world, forbidden to do real things, is not deliberate torture, it is certainly torture nevertheless. And in the end, after all this terrible sacrifice, how many graduate from a professional school in their mid or late twenties, only to find themselves locked for life in a job they discover they hate? Better to sample styles of work on the way there.

Yes, some parents may exploit their children for money, confiscating everything a soon as they come home. But consider: are such parents likely to treat their children better simply because they are of no economic value, but instead constantly cost them money? No, logically, the case is the reverse: at least, if the child’s labour is worth money to them, they will take better care of their children’s health. Being of some worth to them is the ultimate guarantee of any child’s safety.

Earning their own money and potentially being self-supporting also allows a child a decent chance of escaping the abusive family altogether. The present system, by contrast, seems perfectly designed to promote and enable child abuse.

Yes, we probably don't want to send children down the mines. In the old days, this was a real possibility, and child labour laws accordingly made more sense. We wouldn't want young bodies doing work that is dirty and dangerous. But with the shift from an industrial to a service economy, and with modern health and safety regimes, there is in principle such work left anyway.

For poor kids, having some money to call their own may prevent many from dropping schooling sooner than they should, either because their families cannot afford to support them, or because they watch with envy others working and having money to spend. Some may find they hate the work available with relatively little schooling—so much the better. They will stick to their schooling as a result. Others may happen upon a job they really love. Perfect—let them drop out; they have the schooling they need. And if they want more later, the same half-time system remains available.

Nor will starting a family in the meantime make this option no longer possible. The kids can take care of themselves.