Perceptions of childhood and children in industrialised countries have changed drastically since the 19th century, from being economic ‘assets’ for their families, to being economically ‘worthless’ but emotionally ‘priceless’ (Lancy, 2015; Zelizer, 1985). There has been increasing concern for the protection of children, and the promotion of childhood as a period of innocence, freedom from responsibility, and learning.
International conventions, such as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and the International Labour Organization (ILO)’s Minimum Age
Convention (see Box 1; ILO, 2017, 2018), and global development goals for universal education, seek to apply global standards to children living in very different contexts, and assume that the model of childhood they promote is universally desirable. Critiques of rights-based approaches to children’s lives have highlighted their ethnocentrism in assuming that the best interests of children are the same throughout the world, and their failure to recognise children’s agency and motivations (Archambault, 2011;
Hampshire, Panter-Brick, Kilpatrick, & Casiday, 2009). The emotional hyperbole of many media and policy accounts of child labourers, child brides, child soldiers, and street children, portrays them as the innocent victims of exploitative parents or states, eliciting moral indignation which is harnessed to secure donations or action (Hart, 2006). While there are undoubtedly vulnerable children who benefit from outside intervention, these accounts can obscure the specific contexts which lead to children experiencing these outcomes, instead implying that they are the victims of the moral failings of their parents or societies (Archambault, 2011; Hart, 2006; Pupavac, 2001). This risks stigmatising families who are constrained by economic or social situations and must make difficult choices; most parents act in what they consider to be their children’s best interests, but these may not align with the priorities of international agencies (Cassidy, 1987; Hampshire et al., 2009).
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The assumptions and ethnocentrism of global perspectives on childhood have had important consequences for the study of children’s work. The first, and perhaps most important consequence, is that it has influenced how work is conceptualised. Work has little role in a model of childhood in which the education and protection of children are the main concerns. In this model, only work that can be framed as educational, in providing experience or training, is permissible. Children’s work in transitioning contexts is therefore most often conceptualised as problematic, either in being exploitative or risky, or as a barrier to ‘better’ uses of children’s time such as education. The focus of empirical work and policy has thus been on harmful forms of children’s work, or the effect of working on school attendance, and data collection has focused on measuring ‘child labour’ (see Box 1 for definitions of child labour and children’s work) (Bourdillon et al., 2010). Many studies focus on ‘market work’ – work for wages, or producing goods or services for sale – which is seen as exploitative and harmful. However, very few working children are actually involved in market work. Across 36 developing countries, Edmonds & Pavcnik (2005) found that while 68.4% of children aged 5 to 14 were ‘economically active’, only 2.4% were involved in paid work outside the family. There is therefore a significant lack of data on the work done by the majority of children worldwide, underestimating the time children, particularly girls, spend working. This approach also implies that household work is benign. However, household chores and caring duties can also be time-consuming, physically demanding and disruptive of schooling, and very little is known about the relationship between household work and schooling (Ilahi, 2000; UNICEF, 2016).
The second consequence for the study of children’s work is that the benefits of
children’s work are frequently overlooked. As outlined above, work can be an important way for a child to acquire embodied capital and contribute to their family. In societies with high youth unemployment in which the majority of adult occupations are
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subsistence-level, spending time in productive work may actually be more beneficial than attending school, where the skills acquired may be of limited direct relevance. Studies done with working children have shown the pride, self-esteem, and value they derive from their work (Bourdillon, Levison, White, & Myers, 2015). The framing of child labourers as passive victims of exploitation ignores the agency children exert in their own lives, and overlooks the constraints they live within. As work is seen as a less desirable use of children’s time, studies frequently look for trade-offs between work and school, and policies recommend compulsory schooling as the ‘antidote’ to harmful child labour (Brown, 2012). However, contemporary studies find little evidence that
increasing time spent in school reduces child work, or vice versa. Edmonds & Pavcnik (2005) found out-of-school children work on average only one hour more per week than in-school children. 42% of out-of-school children were ‘idle’, i.e. neither working nor in school, and children who did not work were actually less likely to attend school. Work is
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often combined with school, and may provide children with the means to pay school costs (Dessy & Pallage, 2003; Edmonds & Pavcnik, 2005; Nieuwenhuys, 1993).
Box 1. Defining, measuring, and limiting children’s work
The ILO definition of child labour is “work that: is mentally, physically, socially, or morally dangerous and harmful to children; [that] interferes with their schooling by: depriving them of the opportunity to attend school; obliging them to leave school prematurely; or requiring them to attempt to combine school attendance with excessively long and heavy work” (ILO, 2018).The ILO Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (no. 138), raised the minimum age of employment to 15 years, or the age at which compulsory education ended if that was younger.
The ILO Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (no. 182), prioritises the elimination of the activities deemed the most harmful, including the employment of children in prostitution, pornography, and armed conflict.
The UNCRC and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child require states to protect children “from all forms of economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child’s physical, mental, spiritual, moral, or social development”.
The ILO defines ‘work’ as the production of goods or services for sale, or goods for household consumption; unpaid household services (e.g. chores) are only included if done in hazardous conditions or for long hours. Statistics distinguish between ‘children in employment’ and ‘child labourers’. ‘Child labourers’ are:
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• 5 to 11-year-olds performing any kind of work whether hazardous or not • 12 to 14-year-olds performing hazardous work, or non-hazardous work for
more than 14 hours per week
• 15 to 17-year-olds performing hazardous work, or non-hazardous work for more than 43 hours per week
‘Children in employment’ are:
• 15 to 17-year-olds working less than 43 hours per week in non-hazardous work
• 12 to 14-year-olds working less than 14 hours per week (ILO, 2017)
A 10-year-old helping in their family’s shop is thus defined as a child labourer in the same way as a 10-year-old working each day breaking rocks in a quarry, while a 10- year-old spending five hours a day cooking and cleaning is not counted.
While some of the children in this thesis would be defined as being ‘child labourers’ according to the definitions above, I use the term ‘children’s work’ rather than ‘child labour’, to avoid the emotive connotations of the latter phrase, and in line with other social science research in this area (e.g. Nieuwenhuys, 1996; Bourdillon et al., 2010).
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Finally, the converse problem applies to education; while the benefits of education are extolled around the world, there is relatively less recognition of the costs of school beyond economic and practical barriers such as school fees. Yet for many children in rural, developing settings, school can be a far from positive place. They may have to travel long distances, face harsh punishments, be in crowded classrooms, and use an unfamiliar language, while children from poor or minority backgrounds may face discrimination. The culture of competition, and a school system designed to educate a small class of ‘elites’, may also erode children’s confidence and self-esteem
(Nieuwenhuys, 1996; Varkevisser, 1973). Additionally, in contexts with few formal employment opportunities and high youth unemployment, schooling may not be as beneficial as it is often portrayed (Bourdillon et al., 2010).
Taken altogether, these assumptions mean that ‘normal’ children’s work has been overlooked and undervalued, both in theory, and in terms of data collection. Yet it is likely to be a key component of fertility and schooling decisions in transitioning contexts. This project set out to address this gap and speak both to theory within evolutionary anthropology and demography, and to the broader picture surrounding children’s work, including critiques which have called for more nuanced studies and more detailed data collection on children’s time allocation (Bourdillon et al., 2010).