Both China and the USA are some of the biggest contributors to the global market. Both economies produce large quantities of good that are shipped globally. Since bulk production requires a lot of labor, and the prevailing poverty rates among the citizens, children start to work in the dangerous environments of the labor market. The safety and workers right as well as the employment standards are irrelevant when it comes to the means of eking a living. Consequently, children have joined the labor market to eke a living, denying themselves an opportunity to pursue education and develop a higher education. As the economies of the two nations expand, immoral and cruel decisions to employ the children into the labor force at tender ages to support the supply and demand, and advance the profit making. The economies of China and the US has been shaped by child labor that has benefited the countries’ global wealth and private investors.
Child Labor in China
China has experienced child labor before the 1980’s, and it has caused problems till today. China. The communist ideology and the decentralized economic power in China have significantly contributed to the use of the unsanctioned forced labor as well as the state-sanctioned labor. The unsanctioned forced labor is perpetuated through corruption, weak policies, and the lack of legal enforcement. The repressive political system of the Chinese government does not tolerate the publishing of the statistical data of the forced labor in the in the country (Lepillez, 2008). Nonetheless, indirect sources such as news articles, studies, reports and the testimonies of the past forced laborers corroborate to the severity of the situation. For instance, De-ping (2009) reports that a study done in 2003 by the Association of the Chinese Youth and Children Studies indicated that the number of the Chinese idle juveniles had reached ten million, and it was projected with certainty that these unemployed youths were likely to get engaged in child labor. The Communist doctrine of “reform through labor” widely promotes and justifies the state-sanctioned forced labor. This philosophy promotes the virtues of labor as means of transforming dissidents into novel socialist men and women.
The school-going children are affected by the reeducation-through-labor policies sanctioned in the juvenile work-camps, school-related contracted work programs (Lepillez, 2008). An excellent example of this is a case scenario of an explosion that killed more than forty people in an elementary school in 2001 in which the majority of those who perished were the third and fourth-grade students. The explosion was associated with the fireworks that allegedly the students were being forced to assemble. Also, in Chinese rural schools, students work to cater for the budget or to pay the teachers. Moreover, some schools have been shown to employ their students to work in factories as a form of job training (Lepillez, 2008). However, in these situations, the work that the students do are tedious and unskilled and are not career oriented. Child-labor antagonizes the compulsory education because the statutes require that the children below the age of sixteen should be enrolled in schools. Admittedly, the majority of the child labor emanates from the school dropouts particularly the middle and junior school dropouts. In the year 2005, the rates of dropout for the middle and junior high school in China was 2.62 percent, and an average of 17 percent in the schools in the Western parts of China (De-ping, 2009). Government policies have favored the increase in school fees on public education. Most of the China’s education institutions have been privatized which consequently cause families to pay for a larger percentage of the children’s education. The extra school fees make schooling inaccessible for the poor rural households. What ensues is high dropout levels from the schools, and the children are put to work to make contributions to the household income. The unfavorable government policies on education have drastically reduced the access of education for the needy children and have increased the possibility of their exploitation.
Poverty in China is a crucial player in slavery in the contemporary society that propels young children into dangerous and tedious jobs. Admittedly, poverty is explained as the leading cause of child labor. The majority of the child laborers in China are from low-income families. The problem of a labor shortage in the labor-intensive Chinese industries has created a demand for the juveniles to fill in the gaps or else the industries will not have workers for their industries (Marler, 2015). Sadly, ninety-five percent of the underage children workers have not completed their nine years of compulsory education. The employers in the labor-intensive industries hire child workers for the reason of reducing costs of production and pursuing maximum profits in a bid to gain wealth and power. The poorly regulated labor market and increased stress on the competitive production has made some employers to turn to child labor as a means of reducing the unit costs of production. The children are easy prey for the labor-thirsty employers because they are easy to exploit and cheaper than the adults, and they can perform repetitive tasks that require small size and agility. Additionally, the employers prioritize child labor because of lack of the social security, children’s inability to complain, and the absence of children’s involvement in the labor unions (De-ping, 2009). This motivates the employers who have very little knowledge about the children’s rights and the requirement to adhere to the legal statutes. The unfortunate part is that the children are put into work before finishing school. In the industries, the children work excessively long hours and operate machinery that is built for the adults. The punishment meted on the industries as stipulated in a plethora of laws and regulations that forbid child labor are not enough to curb the vice.
Globalization has increased the demand for child labor in China. The fast-paced development of the export industry that needs a great workforce at the lowest price. Poor children and young adults from the rural parts of the country are readily available in large numbers, and it is an enticing source of cheap labor (Marler, 2015). The economic forces behind this occurrence explain why the numerous child traffickers manage to avoid government control. Corruption further worsens the phenomenon because of the economic decentralization. The decentralization of power has created an environment in which the business owners and the local leaders can pursue financial gains at the expense of the vulnerable populations such as the children, and the peasants. The authorities responsible for the implementation of the laws are often the worst abusers of the law that they are supposed to uphold. For instance, the police officers also function as the factory guards such that when the employees are exploited and abused in bonded labor, they have no other authority to turn to for protection (Lepillez, 2008).
The widespread privatization of the industries in the Chinese economy has rendered the authorities ineffective in monitoring the phenomenon of child labor. Child labor is prevalent in the informal sector, despite some level of control in the formal sector. In addition, the migrant labor has tremendously increased the number of the young children available for work. Moreover, there is a direct link between lack of education for the migrant children and the increase in underage laborers in the urban regions where their parents have migrated. Lepillez (2008) points out that China’s household registration system increases the risks involved in finding the jobs in the urban areas especially for the migrants. For instance, a peasant who seeks to relocate to the city to get employment must obtain a permit to relocate, live, and work in the city. The applicants usually pay in a lump sum for the permits, which in most cases are lent to them by the employer. De-ping (2009) notes that the witnessed urban lifestyle and the apparent amounts of money that the preceding migrant workers is a pull factor for more migration to the cities and also result in child labor. Consequently, the economic pressures of urban lifestyle and the rising costs of living cause some parents to lure their children into work.
Child Labor in the USA
As indicated by Kaufman and Rizzini (2007), although child labor is an age-old wonder and of enormous significance in the contemporary world, there has been a minimal formal investigation of the issue particularly in the US. For numerous years, kid work has been one of the greatest obstructions to social advancement. It is a test and long haul objective in numerous nations to cancel all types of work. While the presence of kid work is as often as possible denounced as evil and corrupt, the main problem is to understand the determinants of child labor better first to assess its economic and welfare suggestions.
Privatization and economic reforms have increased the overseas investment in the USA. Coupled with the USA entry into the World Trade Organization, there has been an increase in the overseas investment, and the trend has been on the rise. The last decade saw a rapid increase in the proliferation of private enterprises in the US economy which became the main source of the USA’s GDP. The improper legislation to regulate the private sector coupled with the weak economic legislation will continue to inspire growth in child labor because employers take advantage of the slack implementation of the legislation that outlaws child labor. Multinational corporations (MNCs) are developing size and influence. MNCs represent a three-quarters yield of world exchange and direct universal venture (Kaufman and Rizzini, 2007). The expansion of the MNCs across the borders promotes international competition that has caused the USA to slow-down in the formulation of labor reforms by encouraging the government and the companies to seek low labor costs thereby resisting the enforcement of the international labor standards.
Some legislations of the USA have begun to incorporate labor standards and child labor as a standard for preferential trade and goods that are procured under the federal contracts. Nonetheless, the international free trade regulations do not take into consideration the child labor or the workers’ rights (Acaroglu, & Dagdemir, 2010). The effects of these progressions are fervently investigations recommend that regular specialists in the U.S have missed out as an immediate aftereffect of exchange treaties. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), for example, between the United States, Mexico and Canada has been said to a great extent fall flat working families in each of the three countries. NAFTA has devastated numerous real and potential plant occupations in the United States, Putting descending weight on wages as laborers move into the lower-paying administration sector. (Kaufman and Rizzini, 2007). The US Senate proposed legislation to ban the importation of goods produced by child labor in the 1990’s. This, however, contravened the currents rules of the World Trade Organization. Consequently, the countries affected by the ban on imports produced by child labor have challenged the ban as an unfair barrier to trade. Some countries have also imposed fines on the exports from the USA as a penalty for the violation.
The USA trades more with the other nations across the globe, and this has significantly promoted a negative association between trade and child labor. In the USA, the level of child labor is not a major local standard for the foreign investors (Acaroglu, & Dagdemir, 2010). This is so because the USA has opened up its economy for international trade and its economy has become larger. Therefore, the implication is that the per capita increases and thereby reduce the prevalence of child labor. A deeply integrated market economy like that of the USA is associated with less child labor. Similarly, the USA has a higher stock of foreign direct investments which translates into a lower incidence of child labor. Furthermore, Wacker, & Vadlamannati, (2011), assert that the MNCs are sensitive when it comes to the location of investments and prefer nations that have low levels of child labor. This is to the advantage of the USA, which has low levels of child labor.
Wacker, & Vadlamannati (2011) notes that the USA labor market is highly segmented into a highly educated sector. The highly educated nation assures the multinationals of higher productivity which the multinational companies look for. This translates into a higher reservation wage that they offer to the workers. Therefore, more laborers are employed in the US economy. The proper education that the government affords to its citizens enables the nation to produce enough human capital as the primary resource it can export to other industrialized nations. The US multinationals can export the human capital to other developed nations like France and Australia and still realize production cost advantages that supersede trade and disintegration costs.
Summary
In summary, child labor emanates from certain pull factors, which are mainly labor market needs, family poverty, the employment migration culture, and low returns on education. The economic impacts of global change can disregard the stark reality of developing disparity and its consequences for children. Globalization is most likely enlarging imbalance around the world. The level of imbalance relies on upon the level of expertise that a country can produce. A nation with highly educated citizens attracts more foreign direct investments, and this is the case with the USA. China, on the other hand, has policies that render education inaccessible to the poor, and it, therefore, cannot match the level of skills that the USA produces, even for export.
References
Acaroglu, H., & Dagdemir, O. (2010). The effects of globalization on child labor in developing countries. Business and Economic Horizons, (02), 37-47.
De-ping, L. (2009). A Review of the Available Literature Covering Child Labor in China. Available at: http://www.ccrcsr.com/sites/default/files/ccr_csr_report_English.pdf
Lepillez, K. (2008). The Dark Side of Labor in China. Human Rights & Human Welfare: An Online Journal of Academic Literature Review.
Kaufman, N. H., & Rizzini, I. (2007). Globalization and children: Exploring potentials for enhancing opportunities in the lives of children and youth. Springer Science & Business Media.
Marler, A., (2015). The impact of child labor on China’s economy before the 1980’s. Available at: https://history105.libraries.wsu.edu/fall2015/2015/09/01/impact-of-child-labor-on-the-worlds-economy-before-the-1980s/
Wacker, K. M., & Vadlamannati, K. C. (2011). Do Multinationals Influence Labor Standards? A Close Look at US Outward FDI. A Close Look at US Outward FDI (September 26, 2011). Courant Research Centre Discussion Paper, (98).
