Archive for the ‘economics’ Category

Is child labour wrong?

Thursday, June 19th, 2008

How awful….

Child labour is right below child soldiering on the won’t-someone-please-think-of-the-children scale of moral outrage. Child labour, everyone agrees, is a Problem. And it is an apparently huge problem: the International Labour Organization counts 5-11 year olds as child labourers if they do one hour of work a week!1 Concerned parents should buy a dishwasher ASAP.

But as long as violence and coercion aren’t involved then I’m not convinced that child labour is such a problem, and it’s certainly not a problem solved by feeling guilty about who sewed your socks together, passing unenforceable laws or making empty Declarations.

The roots of child labour

Despite child labour being forbidden by the constitution and the Children’s Act in Ghana, for example, child labour is still common.2 There is a simple reason for this. The use of child labour is not driven by legislative fiat but by a cost-benefit analysis: can a family - or a whole society - afford its children to be an economic burden rather than an economic asset? That is, do the the long-term benefits of education or carefree innocence outweigh the loss of labour power to the family unit for some or all of childhood? Legislation probably complicates this decision - by adding the threat of prosecution, say, or immediate rewards for schooling - but it doesn’t override it.

One of my research aims is to explore the changing use and usefulness of child labour in colonial Ghana. I suspect it is an uneven process, and that an increase in societal wealth does not necessarily lead to a linear decline in child labour. Instead, the value of children’s labour is determined by numerous economic, technological and demographic shifts.

Historical approaches

Some possible determinants of child labour in African history include:

- The availability of adult labour. Demographic trends and shocks - for example the Atlantic slave trade or the present AIDS epidemic - inevitably alter a society’s reliance on child labour.

- New uses for child labour: tending cash crops (cocoa etc) on family farms might be a relevant historical example, and industrialisation and the factory system a possible future dilemna.

- Childhood choice and ambition based on new economic opportunities. The growth of education and an African staffed colonial bureaucracy, for example, created a growing disdain for manual work. I have found one case from the late-1940s of a boy living vagrant in Accra after running away from his home and apprenticeship because he thought that ‘washerman’ was a dishonourable trade.

- Technical and infrastructural changes. The availability and quality of education affects long-term planning. And the availability of mains water and electricity and kitchen appliances cuts down on demand for child labour within the household. But other trends might increase the need for child labour - there is some intriguing evidence that this was the case in the Gold Coast.

Given the complexity of the topic, it is a bit rich for the West to simply say that you can’t use child labour because it’s morally wrong and all children should be in school. Maybe it is and maybe they should - but maybe not.

References:
1Kaushik Basu and Zafiris Tzannatos, “The Global Child Labor Problem: What Do We Know and What Can We Do?,” World Bank Econ Rev 17, no. 2 (December 1, 2003)
2For example: ‘Child Labour Still Prevalent, LRC Calls for Affirmative Action’, Ghanaian Chronicle, 13th June 2008, http://allafrica.com/stories/200806130975.html

Posted in african history, child labour, economics, ghana, history of childhood | 1 Comment »

Review: Tim Harford - The Logic of Life

Sunday, February 17th, 2008

I’m a fan of Tim Harford, aka the Undercover Economist, and author of a very interesting blog at the FT. He is an excellent example of the division of labour, one of his favourite things, successfully hoovering up dull economics papers and rolling out readable prose. His second book, The Logic of Life, is not really about Africa. It is mostly about how cities are great, and how people who live in the country are carbon-hungry subsidy-hounds. It’s really good.

The undercover Africanist

But there are a couple of relevant sections, including a useful discussion of post-colonial African agriculture drawn from Bates’ Markets and States in Tropical Africa. Harford also discusses disease and development. He argues that malaria control is of secondary economic importance to AIDS control because, while malaria mostly affects children, AIDS primarily affects economically more productive adults. (He’s not totally heartless, just an economist.) He also argues that disease control is itself secondary to, and follows from, the establishment of institutions that incentivise economic innovation and wealth creation.

Won’t somebody please think of the children?

I think he might be wrong about malaria. This is mostly guesswork on my part. But, judging by the notes, it was also mostly guesswork by Harford - so wild conjecture is allowed (and fun of course).

Even if we just consider malaria in younger children - the least economically productive demographic - the disease has a spillover impact on household economics. First, children don’t suffer an illness alone: they are nursed, probably by a more economically-productive family member. Serious treatment probably involves a time-consuming trip to a non-local medical facility. Sickness in the young therefore removes important child labour from the household economy, and the labour of healthy adults. Second, the high likelihood of a child dying creates a rational incentive to have more children. Pregnancy, childbirth and post-natal care reduce the availability and productivity of female household labour for lengthy periods. High childhood mortality reduces the eventual economic payoff for this sacrifice. And, third, medical facilities spend an inordinate amount of time on childbirth or treating childhood malaria, skewing medical provision away from temporarily-sick, but otherwise economically-productive adults.

AIDS and malaria

Harford goes on to argue - correctly I suspect - that AIDS is a more significant direct economic problem than malaria. But in areas with a high incidence of both diseases, AIDS and malaria may be linked. AIDS has already reduced the stock of econimcally productive adults and created a scary number of child-headed households: their economic viability is thus under great pressure from childhood malaria. And, in adult-headed households, child mortality may increase AIDS infection rates. First, the replacement of childhood malaria victims by (un)knowingly HIV-positive parents, perhaps with a new partner, is a rational choice with socially harmful consequences. And second, pregnancy does not just reduce the domestic and agricultural productivity of women, it may also temporarily remove their sexual labour from the household. Bored and impatient fathers thus have an increased incentive to find another sexual partner, and the corollary increased risk of contracting and passing on AIDS.

Disease and development

Harford ultimately argues that disease has been controlled elsewhere after economic growth, and that growth was secured by establishing institutions that preserved and encouraged the creation of economic wealth. True enough, I expect. But it is also true that the technology to control malaria already exists, and where these technologies are imperfect, the incentive to innovate certainly exists. African history has been marked by efforts to control, direct and increase labour power (if not always productivity). So if African governments need to create or reform economic institutions then a good place to start might be anti-malarial projects that protect and encourage such ‘wealth in people’.

Tim Harford, The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World:
Buy from amazon.co.uk or amazon.com

Posted in african history, aids, development, disease, economics, malaria, tim harford | No Comments »