Job creations help eliminate child labor, poverty

Dr Bharat Jhunjhunwala

NEW DELHI (JP): In its State of the World's Children Report, 1997, UNICEF has called for six steps to eliminate the abominable evil of child labor. Chief among these steps are legal action to prevent child labor in hazardous occupations and the provision of free and compulsory education. What is unfortunate, however, is that none of the steps relate to the creation of jobs that are essential for achieving this task. Without such job creation, these steps, as advocated by UNICEF, will lead to worse forms of child labor, not their elimination.

While discussing the roots of child labor, the report says that "the most powerful force driving children into hazardous, debilitating labor is the exploitation of poverty". It quotes a Latin American study that says "without the income of working children aged 13-17, the incidence of poverty would rise by between 10 and 20 percent". In other words, child labor and poverty are inextricably interlinked.

This is supported by the experience of almost every continent. In Southeast Asia, the report says, the proportion of child labor is declining "as per capita income increases". In Latin America, the proportion of children working has increased "partly due to the economic crisis of the 1980s". In Central and Eastern Europe child labor has increased substantially "as a result of the abrupt switch from centrally planned to market economies". In the industrial countries, child labor was sharply reduced, among others, by "a rise in family incomes and technological improvements that made children's labor less useful to employers".

The conclusion is obvious. If child labor has to be eliminated, as it must be, ways have to be found to increase the demand for educated adult labor. That would make it beneficial for families to invest in the education of their children rather than putting them to work at a tender age.

UNICEF admits the results of intentional pressure and legislative action without such an economic complement is more harmful to the cause. It points out that in 1992, the Harkin Bill was introduced in the U.S. Congress which would prohibit the import of products made by child labor into the U.S. Although the bill had not reached the statute books, the mere threat of such action led the garment industry in Bangladesh to summarily dismiss the child workers, most of them girls. In a subsequent study some of them were found working in more hazardous situations, in unsafe workshops where they were paid less, or in prostitution. Positive motives to eliminate child labor, without proper economic arrangements, only worsen the situation.

The report also quotes a mother from India, herself a sweeper, who sent her daughter to clean lavatories rather than to school. She asked: "Why should I waste my time and money on sending my daughter to school where she will learn nothing of use? My elder girl will be married soon. Her mother-in-law will put her to cleaning latrines somewhere. Too much schooling will only give girls big ideas, and then they will be beaten up by their husbands or abused by their in-laws."

The point is that unless education leads to a better job, it can even become detrimental to the psyche. A 15-year old boy in a tribal area of India engaged in stone cutting was asked why his parents did not send him to school. He said his parents wanted him to go to school, but did not think there would be any purpose in doing so. Another lad in his village had passed school but did not have a "good" job. Moreover, being educated, he now considered stone cutting to be below his standard. So he stayed at home doing nothing. He was despised by his family and others as well. He did not want to be like that, he said. He preferred to go to work. At least, when he returned from work, he could have a cup of tea at the tea shop and be respected and welcomed in his home. He could even hope to get a good wife.

The point is simple. Families make a benefit-cost analysis of education. If the investment in education leads to greater income benefits, they would certainly go at it. But if it is only meant as an investment with negative returns, they might as well go without it. The crux of the problem of child labor is to increase the returns to education by generating jobs and opportunities for self-employment. Education without jobs, therefore, creates dissonance rather than liberation. This is the message that comes out loud and clear from the report.

The strange part is that the six steps recommended by UNICEF ignore the issue of jobs altogether. The specific actions that are said to be urgently needed are the following: (1) elimination of hazardous child labor; (2) provision of free and compulsory child education; (3) wider legal protection; (4) birth registration; (5) data collection and monitoring; and (6) multinational corporations must not procure goods produced by child labor. The report repeatedly stresses that no progress is possible without improving the economic demand for educated labor, yet in the end UNICEF disregards economics totally and settles for the same old cliches of providing education and strengthening legal action that have been utterly useless till now.

UNICEF needs to be condemned because if legal prohibition, compulsory education and prohibition on procurement are implemented as recommended and little is done to employ the adults and provide economic remuneration to those children that are displaced, then it will only worsen the situation as has happened in Bangladesh. What we need is to examine the present strategy of globalization which is pushing our scarce capital into capital intensive industries and leaving labor intensive sectors to languish. The primary requirement is to increase the opportunities of self-employment and demand for skilled labor so that it becomes economical for the families to invest in the education of their children. It is unfortunate that an invisible hand seems to prevent UNICEF from giving such straightforward conclusions.

The writer is a political economist based in New Delhi.