Data Exploration: Child Labor
Child Labor Data Introduction By Esteban Ortiz-Ospina and Max RoserAdapted by Mike Papritz and Trevor R. GetzChildren have always worked. During the nineteenth and twentieth century, reform movements sought to limit this, but even today, 265 million children still work.
2Child Labor Data IntroductionBy Esteban Ortiz-Ospina and Max RoserIntroductionIt’s estimated that globally there are around 265 million children engaged in work. This represents 17 percent of all children in the world. These figures are the latest estimates available from the International Labour Organisation’s “World Report on Child Labour,” published in 2013. In the past century, many countries have managed to virtually eliminate child labor. Today, child labor is most common in the region of Sub-Saharan Africa. But there are examples of countries around the world where child labor was the norm at some time in the past. This data exploration looks at child labor from around 1850 to present in order to analyze how the prevalence of child labor has changed over time. Labor, in this case, means paid employment outside of the home. The Industrial Revolution expanded work opportunities for adults. When a country industrialized, wage labor tended to increase overall. This was true both in cities and in rural areas. But was it true for children? Analyzing child labor since the Industrial RevolutionWe don’t have very reliable estimates of child labor for many countries before the twentieth century. But most scholars believe that industrialization initially led to an increase in child labor. Then, during the twentieth century, child labor began to decrease. But this fall in child labor over the twentieth century was not constant. There were some events that caused child labor rates to temporarily increase for several years. For example, in some countries, the First and Second World Wars led to children reentering the workforce.Presented below in Charts 1, 2, and 3 is data for three countries where we do have good records of child labor rates—Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In all three countries, we see child labor fall dramatically over the twentieth century. In Italy, for example, child labor was very common at the beginning of the century—half of all children were employed. By the middle of the century, this number had fallen to less than 10 percent.
3Child Labor Data IntroductionBy Esteban Ortiz-Ospina and Max RoserChart 1:Explore at: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/incidence-of-child-labour-in-italy By Our World in Data, CC BY 4.0.
4Child Labor Data IntroductionBy Esteban Ortiz-Ospina and Max RoserChart 2:Explore at: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/incidence-of-child-labour-in-the-uk?time=1851..1911 By Our World in Data, CC BY 4.0.
5Child Labor Data IntroductionBy Esteban Ortiz-Ospina and Max RoserChart 3:Explore at: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/incidence-of-child-labour-in-the-united-states-1890-1930?time=1890..1930By Our World in Data, CC BY 4.0.Child labor todayIn Chart 4, you can see that on a global scale, child labor rates continue to fall today. In the year 2000, 23 percent of all children in the world were engaged in work. By 2012, this had fallen to 17 percent. This is an encouraging decline, but child labor is still common in many countries in the world. In the map below, you can see in which countries child labor remains common in the twenty-first century. Child labor can prevent children from experiencing important opportunities like going to school.
6Child Labor Data IntroductionBy Esteban Ortiz-Ospina and Max RoserChart 4:Explore at: https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2016/02/ourworldindata_child-labor-global-post-2000.pngBy Our World in Data, CC BY 4.0.
7Child Labor Data IntroductionBy Esteban Ortiz-Ospina and Max RoserChart 5:Explore at: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/incidence-of-child-labour?tab=map By Our World in Data, CC BY 4.0.Will this trend continue? What factors might be contributing to this overall decline? What could disrupt it?
8Child Labor Data IntroductionBy Esteban Ortiz-Ospina and Max RoserEsteban Ortiz-Ospina Esteban is Senior Researcher and Content Lead at Our World In Data, as well as executive co-director of Global Change Data Lab, the non-profit organization that publishes and maintains the website and the data tools that make OWID’s work possible. Esteban does research on economic development, the public sector, education, and a wide range of related topics. Esteban completed his doctoral studies at the University of Oxford (DPhil Economics).Max RoserMax is the founder and director of Our World in Data. He began the project in 2011 and for several years was the sole author, until receiving funding for the formation of a team. Max’s research focuses on poverty, global health, and the distribution of incomes. He is also Programme Director of the Oxford Martin Programme on Global Development at the University of Oxford, and Co-executive Director of Global Change Data Lab, the non-profit organization that publishes and maintains the website and the data tools that make OWID’s work possible.Image creditsCover: Photograph of a group of breaker boys at a Pennsylvania coal mine, taken by Lewis Hine, circa 1909. Breaker boys broke coal into pieces, sorted the pieces into categories of uniform size, then removed impurities and graded the coal. Hine was renowned for using his camera as a tool for social reform and his photographs were instrumental in changing child labour laws in the United States. This image is from the archives of the United States Library of Congress. Please credit. © Popperfoto via Getty Images/Getty Images https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/photograph-of-a-group-of-breaker-boys-at-a-pennsylvania-news-photo/151182085