Linking Child Labour with International Trade: Recent Developments and their Implications

This indispensable volume brings together the key contributions to the academic literature on the subject of the political economy of trade policy. Topics covered include unilateral and multilateral trade policies, international trade agreements and administered protection. In their comprehensive introduction, the editors present an insightful discussion of the political economy approach, the development of multilateral trade agreements, the trade and internal motives that guide unilateral trade policy and the features that characterise unilateralism. This volume is essential for professors, researchers and policymakers concerned with international trade policy.

Does child labour increase unemployment and reduce labour force participation? Empirical evidence from Jordan

Currently in Indonesia child labor is not a new issue because in almost all regions in Indonesia there are still many underage children working. but not in accordance with the regulations that have been made by the government, labor issues and child labor are problems that need serious attention, regulation and supervision from the government. This study aims to analyze the considerations that must be made by the government in overcoming the problem of child labor. The problems studied in this study are about how the form of government supervision of child labor and government supervision procedures for child labor. so that how the function of government supervision of child labor and how the government's responsibility for this and has the aim of examining and analyzing how government policies in protecting child labor are in accordance with the supervisory function, what factors influence the government's responsibility to increase efforts to protect child labor.The method used in analyzing and discussing the problem of Government Supervision of Child Labor is Normative Juridical. This type of research is descriptive-analytical, the sources of legal materials used are primary legal materials and secondary legal materials. research techniques are carried out through literature review followed by descriptive analysis using qualitative methods.The results show that the government has an important responsibility to protect child labor. What the government must consider is ensuring that there is effective supervision to protect child labor. The government also needs to implement clear policies and regulations to protect child labor. This includes developing regulations that provide protection and limit child laborers' access to hazardous industries, as well as providing protection and access to education and health..

International trade and child labor: Cross-country evidence

With product labelling has already been in vogue in the developed countries to distinguish products produced by child labour from those that are “child labour free” to influence the buyers’ choice, one might be tempted to suggest that such labels should contain more information regarding the extent to which child labour has been used in a product. But, as this chapter shows, if labels contain such information and the buyers react to this by offering increasingly lower prices for the varieties containing more child labour per unit of output, it may do more harm than helping the cause. That is, a trade sanction against child labour content of a good exported by developing countries may not be a good idea since it may, in fact, raise the incidence of child labour in those countries. This result is established in a simple general equilibrium framework where parents are altruist.

This paper examines the issue of global child labor. The treatment is grounded in the classical economics of Adam smith and the more recent writings of human capital theorists. Using this framework, the universal problem of child labor in newly industrializing countries is investigated. Child labor is placed in its historical context with a brief review of practices in the United States and Great Britain at the time those countries were industrializing. Then, child labor is examined in its contemporary global context. We argue that, as countries industrialize, they tend to follow predictable patterns of development – including use of and eventual abandonment of child labor. We argue that this convergence under the logic of industrial capitalism supports a universalist approach to human rights (that would condemn child labor) over a more tolerant cultural relativist approach.

This chapter considers a 3 × 3 × 3 competitive general equilibrium framework of a small open economy which exports product produced by child labour. In the first part, we abstract from unemployment to begin with and assume that adult labour market maintains full employment. Our objectives have been to investigate the effectiveness of trade and non-trade policies in the presence of child labour problem and also to examine the impacts on national welfare and trade balance of such an economy. In particular, in this chapter, we have examined the effectiveness of three different kinds of policies on the incidence of child labour. Among these three, one is trade policy and the rest are non-trade policies. First part of this chapter reveals that economic expansion via increase in adult labour endowment is ineffective in curtailing the incidence of child labour. The other two policies seem to be efficient in this ground. However, any policy designed to control child labour incidence must have an impact on welfare and trade balance situation of the economy. Trade balance situation worsens in case of economic expansion via increase in domestic capital stock. However, the other non-trade policy leaves it as unchanged. But the impact is ambiguous for the case of trade policy. Again, welfare impact is positive only in case of economic expansion via increase in adult labour endowment but ambiguous in the other two cases. Hence, from the above analysis, we observe that none of the policies simultaneously can have favourable impact on child labour supply, trade balance and welfare of the small open economy. In part two of the chapter, we introduce unemployment problem in the adult labour market on one hand, and retain the existence of a child labour market on the other hand. The economy is divided into one rural and two urban sub-sectors. Four inputs are used in the model among which three are specific in nature. The representative adult worker in this model not only supplies his own labour but also sends his children out to work. Factor market distortion in this model is captured by the existence of a factor price differential between urban and rural sectors. The model is used to analyse the effects of imposition of various forms of trade restrictions on the unemployment of adult workers on the one hand and on the incidence of child labour on the other. Alternative trade policy prescriptions to combat child labour as well as adult market unemployment problem have been analysed. An interesting result obtained from the exercise of trade policy suggests that supply of child labour is shown to vary inversely with the level of unemployment in the adult labour market. In part three, we focus on an important non-trade policy, namely education subsidy to find its effects on the incidence of child labour.

ABSTRACTThis article examines the ways in which the problem of child labour has been perceived and addressed, from the beginnings of social concern about these issues until the present, with illustrations from The Netherlands and Indonesia. National and international responses to the problem of child labour reflect a number of assumptions which are almost completely at odds with the views and the preferences of children themselves. Paradoxically, powerful lobbies in some of the world's wealthiest countries – which cannot enforce, and in some cases are beginning to relax, their own child labour laws – are trying to insist that the developing countries tighten and/or enforce their laws, under the threat of various forms of sanction or boycott. These increasingly active threats make it highly inadvisable for any exporting country to acknowledge the existence of children's employment at all, for example by protective legislation or other efforts to promote the improvement of children's working conditions.

The purpose of this thesis was to address the issue of non-compliance with international child labor standards in the Indian case. In order to do this I took a social constructivist approach to analyzing and explaining human behavior, utilizing methods of process tracing and secondary case study analysis. I first looked at why states ratifY treaties embodying international child labor standards but fail to comply with them. I then evaluated the viability of the popular legal positivist proposal to bring about compliance by linking non-compliance with economic sanctions. My findings demonstrated that the reason for non-compliance is that there are strong norms within the Indian social structure which support the practice of child labor, in direct contrast to the international treaties prohibiting child labor. Thus, I concluded that the linkage of non-compliance and economic sanctions would be ineffective because sanctions would do little to address the cause of the non-compliance.

This article considers a competitive general equilibrium model of a small, open less developed economy which exports products using child labour, the supply of which varies inversely with the rate of unemployment in the adult labour market. The effects of policies such as trade sanctions and the subsidisation or protection of adult labour are analysed. It is suggested that the former may actually aggravate the child labour problem, if the unemployment effect dominates the wage effect. On the other hand, theoretical analysis indicates that trade and fiscal policies influencing the effective producers' price of the products of adult labour might be a more effective approach to the problem.

This paper provides an overview of the current academic and public debate on child labor. There is growing impetus to impose international minimum labor standards banning child labor. However, this paper argues that while partial bans such as trade restrictions, voluntary codes of conduct and labeling schemes may improve the working conditions of a small percentage of child laborers in developing countries, this approach might ultimately do more harm than good. Total or partial bans on child labor have the potential to lower household welfare under realistic assumptions, as will be shown in a simple model. We argue that the underlying economic determinants of child labor supply must be addressed directly, taking into account the interrelationship between the market for schooling and that for child labor. The paper emphasizes that, with limited resources available for combating child labor, it is important to carefully judge which policies will have the greatest impact. However, as our model has also shown, under certain circumstances, major causes for the emergence and existence of child labor may be credit market imperfections and the high costs of education, so that resources should be allocated accordingly.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the effect of globalization and credit market imperfections on child labour.Design/methodology/approachAnalysis is based on cross-country regression framework, incorporating 129 developing countries for the period 1970-2010.FindingsThe findings indicate that countries that are more open to trade and having higher foreign direct investment inflow have lower incidence of child labour. As child labour in export-related industries is hard to find, trade sanctions may not have a significant effect on child labour. Further study concludes that income of the bottom quartile of the population is the best representation of the income of the poor when studying child labour.Research limitations/implicationsThe study uses the data compiled by International Labour Organization (ILO). Though much of the variation in the data is because of the adjustments made by ILO, this is the only comparable cross-country estimates available. Hence in the absence of the cross-country comparable estimates, many empirical studies have used this data set (e.g. Cigno et al., 2002; Dehejia and Gatti, 2002; Rogers and Swinnerton, 2001). This study acknowledges this limitation but again in the absence of any comparable estimates, the assessment is also based on this data set.Originality/valueStudy contributes in the literature by comparing the effect of export and trade and by exploring the effect of an alternate measure of the income, estimated by using Gini coefficient, on child labour. Further studies exploring the effect of globalization did not explore the presence of imperfect credit market, however, this study has explored the effect of credit market imperfections as well.

Objectives: Child labor is a problem that needs attention especially in developing countries The pandemic of Covid-19 has given it a spurt. Previously conducted studies on child labor remained focused on existence, causes and magnitude of this universal dilemma. Several measures at national and international level have been taken to eradicate it but could not get succeed fully. There is a need to explore the experiences and problems of working children from which they use to pass through. The needs of working children should get highlighted so that some suitable measures can be taken to make the condition better. However, this research is aimed to exploring psychological, physical, social, workplace, familial needs and problems faced by child labor further to find out some feasible alternative solutions. Design of the Study: Qualitative design and thematic analysis was used to compile results. Place and Duration: Working children in field were interviewed from two cities of Punjab Pakistan Multan and Jhung respectively from May 2022 to July 2022. Sample and Method: Total 19 working children including two girls under the age limit of 16 have interviewed from different workplaces as workshops, hospital, hotel and tea stall. Purposive sampling technique was used to include participants. Semi structured interviews have conducted with participant’s consent. Results and Conclusion: Data has been analyzed through method of thematic analysis. Eight super themes have been derived namely “Covid closure, low income cause of work and children’s will”, “Personal needs, beating, and poverty creates sadness”, “Face familial health problems, family disputes and financial problems”, “Scolding and beating at workplace and from general people”, “We are okay as we are, have no other solutions except Allah or hard work”, “Like study but need financial support and teacher’s good behavior in school and awareness”, “Work adjustment with time, social examples and personal experiences forms concepts about education job and work”, “Earning, exposure, supportive behavior of family and work master creates happiness and develops a sense of responsibility” from the gathered data. The present study highlights the experiences, needs and problems of child labor.

The Third World cities have been reinvented by the forces of globalization as the destinations of new investments, causing the migration of a teeming million to the major urban centers without any corresponding increase in the creation of new jobs and other basic amenities required for decent living. The problem of child labor has also been exacerbated to an unprecedented level in the urban areas of the Third World countries during this period. Yet the dominant discourses on this problem have come from the Western observers or have some prior Western presence in its understanding of the problem, which defers the Third Worldly understanding of the situation. The author argues that a paradigm shift is needed to incorporate various local discourses in order to effectively address the problem of child labor. Based on a decade of fieldwork among the poor and marginalized population in the city of Kolkata, Child Labor and the Urban Third World will give readers an idea of how this problem has become inextricably bound with various other local conditions, such as the security of tenure in the houses.

ABSTRACTI investigate how the provision of information regarding the use of child labour in foreign production affects imports, using a staggered adoption design. I exploit a list, published annually by the US Department of Labor, with information on tradable goods produced using child labour in different countries. I find that the inclusion in the list leads to a decrease in US imports from that country equal to 15%, taking into account potential spillover effects. I provide evidence suggesting that this effect is not due to any change in price but is driven by a reduction in both US firms' intermediate input demand and demand by US final consumers, with the former channel being slightly larger.