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The Wealth of Children: Reconsidering the Child Labour Debate

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Studies in Modern Childhood

Abstract

The past two decades’ re-emergence of child labour has been explained as the outcome of the globalization of the world economy which has made the work of young children available for exploitation on a previously unknown scale. But how this work is exploited and by whom exactly remains a matter of debate. Dominant economic approaches see in local entrepreneurs the main exploiters and place the responsibility with both governments and parents. Parents, being either risk-averse or lacking in altruism, would offer their children as cheap labour power to profit-hungry entrepreneurs. Detailed anthropological studies, far fewer in number, suggest that this view fails to account for the reciprocity that informs long-term intra-familial exchange relationships and the pivotal place of children therein. Both approaches have their merits, but are unsatisfactory.

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Authors
  1. Olga Nieuwenhuys
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway

    Jens Qvortrup (Professor of Sociology) (Professor of Sociology)

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© 2005 Olga Nieuwenhuys

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Nieuwenhuys, O. (2005). The Wealth of Children: Reconsidering the Child Labour Debate. In: Qvortrup, J. (eds) Studies in Modern Childhood. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230504929_10

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