The Pros and Cons of Child Labor

"The term ‘child labor' is defined by the United States Department of Labor as the employment of boys and girls when they are too young to work for hire; or when they are employed at jobs unsuitable or unsafe for children of their ages." (Americana 461) According to American life-styles, children should be at school or at play. Yet, the fact remains that there are Third World nations where the economy is such that families need their children to work to supplement their meager incomes. Like it or not, child labor exists, and in some places makes the difference between true hunger and abject poverty or just barely surviving. It is a fact that to many the very term "child labor" brings visions of Dickensian orphans, guided by a Fagin or some other corrupt industrialist, using children to hold down the cost of wages. Yet, there are arguments for, as well as against the employment of children, even in the 21st century.
Arguments FOR Child labor.

In many ethnic business (i.e. Chinese restaurants for example) children work alongside their parents. It is both a financial necessity, and also part of the ethnic family work ethic. As Miri Song (2001) points out in her research on the subject, "A pivotal…device…is the ‘family work contract' (FWC) which describes the ‘diffuse understandings and expectations' that bind children to their work." (Song 354) What her research ends up with is that "it serves as a timely reminder that child labor is not just an issue of exploited children making soccer balls in developing countries….Child labor is not always a matter of crass exploitation." (Song 355)