Rights and Wrongs of Children's Work

2. Work That Children Do

Much of the most important information needed to make good decisions about the girls in Méknès was available from children, as the later interviews demonstrated. One of the most important and widely recognized lessons learned from experience over the last decade is the critical importance of consulting with working children before making decisions about the nature of their problems and appropriate interventions. Hearing from children is important both to them and to society, and in this book we frequently cite research that has paid attention to what the children say. In brief, field evidence strongly suggests that working children know and understand their situation better than most adults realize, and when their perspectives differ radically from the viewpoints of adults, we need to consider whether the basis for adult viewpoints is justified. Even in the social sciences, some viewpoints and assumptions seem to be based on surprisingly little evidence, including a number of studies coming out of economics and based on quantitative data. Economics is a relatively influential field, and readers familiar with the large body of econometric research publications on child labor may wonder why they are not more frequently cited in this book. Economics research relies on quantitative data, which often captures only particular dimensions of children’s work while neglecting others. Often, the assumptions used to make up for incomplete data are also questionable, and this problem also plagues economics theorizing on children’s work. In our view, however, this is not essentially an issue of disciplinary or quantitative/qualitative divisions. The issue in our view relates more to methodology , and to the need to base assumptions and interpretations on what we actually know, and also an awareness of what we don’t know. To take a simple example, Patrick Emerson summarizing “the economic view of child labor” comments , “though almost every theoretical study of child labor posits a fairly rigid relationship between child work and diminished adult human capital, there is very little empirical evidence to support or refute this assumption” (Emerson, 2009, 8). There are excellent economics studies using quantitative data that we respect and cite; author Deborah Levison is herself an economist working in this field. Some quantitative studies are based on surveys with well-controlled samples and detailed, patient questioning; and some of the best information available comes from this kind of source. However, most quantitative studies of children’s work use large-scale national sample survey data designed for other purposes, and with these data they produce statistics on “child labor” and related econometric analyses. The surveys usually identify whether children are “economically active.” If ILO guidelines are followed, children working as little as an hour a week are counted. Because the surveys are adult-oriented, the questions often do not capture well what children are really doing. They typically count some children as workers who arguably should not be counted, while many other working RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF CHILDREN’S WORK 18 children are not counted. Anybody trying to make use of this kind of countryspecific data for practical purposes needs first to investigate and confirm its quality. When international estimates are based on many surveys of this sort, the problems are compounded by definitional, procedural, and quality differences, and the resulting estimates are so problematic that specialists who understand the process seldom use them. The ILO has over the years tried to refine its survey instruments and improve its estimates, resulting in a number of useful country studies.17 But taken as a whole, the data system is fraught with problems . World “child labor” estimates by the ILO use a large dose of informed judgment to supplement extremely incomplete statistical information. Nobody really knows how many of the world’s children (in total) perform what kinds of work, when, and where. In short, there is a persistent problem of academic studies uncritically using assumptions and concepts that do not reflect real-world situations, or relying too heavily on inadequate data from national surveys. When researchers use data of unknown or suspect quality and pass it through a standard statistical procedure—sometimes without really understanding whether the data meet the demands of the sophisticated analytical procedures being used—the results of the analysis, no matter how impressive looking, may be misleading. While there is also no dearth of questionable studies relying on descriptive and qualitative case material in disciplines other than economics, the tendency of educated adults to find statistics convincing (see Crossen, 1994) is in this case particularly...