research report on child labour

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Child Labour: Global estimates 2020, trends and the road forward

UNICEF/ILO joint publication

The latest global estimates indicate that the number of children in child labour has risen to 160 million worldwide – an increase of 8.4 million children in the last four years. 63 million girls and 97 million boys were in child labour globally at the beginning of 2020, accounting for almost 1 in 10 of all children worldwide. 

This report warns that global progress to end child labour has stalled for the first time in 20 years. The number of children aged 5 to 17 years in hazardous work – defined as work that is likely to harm their health, safety or morals – has risen by 6.5 million to 79 million since 2016. In sub-Saharan Africa, population growth, extreme poverty, and inadequate social protection measures have led to an additional 16.6 million children in child labour over the past four years. 

Additional economic shocks and school closures caused by COVID-19 mean that children already in child labour may be working longer hours or under worsening conditions, while many more may be forced into the worst forms of child labour due to job and income losses among vulnerable families. The report warns that globally 9 million additional children are at risk of being pushed into child labour by the end of 2022 as a result of the pandemic.

Children in child labour are at risk of physical and mental harm. Child labour compromises children’s education, restricting their rights and limiting their future opportunities, and leads to vicious inter-generational cycles of poverty and child labour.

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Child labour

Related resources, child labour methodology report.

Impact of Unpaid Household Services on the Measurement of Child Labour

Child Labour data

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International Child Labor & Forced Labor Reports

ILAB publishes three reports on international child labor and forced labor that serve as valuable resources for research, advocacy, government action and corporate responsibility. These reports are The Department of Labor's Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor; the List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor; and the List of Products Produced by Forced or Indentured Child Labor. Each of these reports has a distinct mandate, focus and set of implications, but taken collectively, they document the current situation of child labor, forced labor and forced child labor around the world.

Read More ››

ILAB as a Knowledge Generator

ILAB’s research and reporting are carried out under Congressional mandates and Presidential directives. They provide specific, actionable information to various stakeholders about how to combat labor abuses in countries around the world.

• Foreign governments use the reports to strengthen laws, enforcement, policies, and programs for vulnerable children and families in or at-risk of child labor or forced labor.
• Companies rely on these reports to inform risk assessments, to conduct due diligence on their supply chains, and to develop strategies to address the problem.
• Consumers use our research to minimize the risk that their purchases inadvertently support exploitative labor practices around the world.
• Civil society organizations, including academic institutions, use the reports to inform advocacy efforts to assist victims.
• U.S. federal government agencies use the reports to safeguard federal procurement and guard against the importation of goods made with forced labor, including forced child labor.

Other Research

ILAB funds research projects that develop and pilot new tools and methodologies that deepen our knowledge and understanding of child labor and forced labor, including their root causes. ILAB programming has supported:

• The collection and analysis of credible data on child labor, forced labor, and human trafficking from over 90 national child labor surveys and 10 surveys focused on forced labor or forced child labor;
• The development of new survey methodologies, qualitative and quantitative studies, and statistical guidelines on child labor and forced labor; and
• The establishment of global estimates on child labor and forced labor, which serve as the standard for measuring worldwide progress on these issues.

Focusing on the efforts of certain U.S. trade beneficiary countries and territories to eliminate the worst forms of child labor through legislation, enforcement mechanisms, policies and social programs.

Listing goods that ILAB has reason to believe are produced by child labor or forced labor, including, to the extent practicable, goods that are produced with inputs that are produced with forced labor or child labor.

Containing goods and their source countries that ILAB, along with the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State, have reason to believe are made by forced or indentured child labor.

Want this report plus over a thousand pages of research in the palm of   your hand? Download ILAB's Sweat & Toil App today!

Are you a company looking to fight child labor and forced labor in supply   chains? View ILAB's Comply Chain Tool Today!

• List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor
• Executive Order 13126 List of Products
• All ILAB Publications on Child Labor & Forced Labor
• Federal Register Notice of List Update [10/04/2022]

Submissions

The Office of Forced Labor, Child Labor and Human Trafficking is continuously collecting information and encourages submissions by national governments, international organizations, businesses and corporations, trade and workers' organizations, NGOs, academia, and the general public. We review all submissions as they are received. Submissions are welcome at any time.

To submit comments on or information for the TDA report, please email  [email protected] ; fax to 202-693-4830; or mail to ILAB, U.S. Department of Labor, c/o OCFT Research and Policy Unit, 200 Constitution Ave. NW, S-5317, Washington, DC 20210.

Child Labor

Why and where do children work? How did child labor change over time?

By Esteban Ortiz-Ospina and Max Roser

This page was first published in February 2016 and last revised in January 2024.

The International Labour Organisation states in its 2013 World Report on Child Labour that there were around 265 million working children in the world—almost 17 per cent of the worldwide child population. According to the publicly available data discussed in more detail below, Sub-Saharan Africa is the region where child labor is most prevalent.

While absolute numbers are still high, particularly in those countries with the lowest standards of living, from a historical viewpoint there are concrete examples of countries that managed to virtually eliminate widespread child labor in the course of a century. The United Kingdom is a case in point. In terms of recent developments, global trends show a significant reduction in child labor over the last couple of decades. However, there is wide dispersion in the progress that different countries have achieved.

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See all interactive charts on child labor ↓

Long-run history of child labor in today's rich countries

Historical studies suggest that child work was widespread in Europe and North America in the 19th century, but declined very rapidly at the turn of the 20th century. The available historical evidence seems consistent with the fact that industrialisation in Western countries initially increased the demand for child labor, but then eventually contributed towards its elimination. 1

The visualizations show the share of children in employment for the UK and the United States at the turn of the 20th century. For the US chart you can add data on rural versus urban child labor trends: for both boys and girls, the incidence of child labor was higher in rural populations.

Whilst consistent survey data on child labor in the UK is limited beyond 1911, some estimates of 20th century labor have emerged. These statistics show the significant impact of the First and Second World Wars on childhood employment. Following a reported spike in employment during the First World War (1914-1918), rates of childhood labor appeared to fall to approximately 6-7 per cent of children aged 12-14 in England and Wales. 2

This would make the UK's rate of reduction in child labor slightly faster than that of the United States. However, with the onset of the Second World War in 1939, the incidence of child employment appeared to show another spike- by 1944, this had increased again to 15.3 percent of 12-14 year olds. 2

Long-run history of child labor in Italy

A global comparison.

How do the child labor figures above compare to current global estimates? This visualization plots the series for the UK, US, and also Italy, together with two recent global series. The different series in this chart are not perfectly comparable because of differences in the definitions. However, they do provide a rough sense of perspective.

As we can see, the incidence of child labor in England in 1900 was similar to global incidence a century later. Global rates of child labor today are similar to those of Italy in the 1950's at around 10 per cent. In the next section we explore these series in more detail and discuss recent developments.

Global view on child labor today

The incidence of child labor has been going down in more recent years.

A complete and overview of recent global trends in child labor can be found in the ILO's report Marking Progress Against Child Labour (2013) 3 produced by the organization's International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC). This report presents global estimates and trends for the period 2000-2012.

The two charts here show the ILO report data. This first chart presents the previous changes in the world-wide share of children (ages 5-17) in employment.

As we discuss below , there is a lack of consensus regarding the appropriate ages for measuring child labor, particularly for the purpose of cross-country comparisons and global aggregates. The age bracket ranging from 5 to 17 years of age is common in many UN reports, but there is evidently a need to differentiate work at different ages, since children in their teenage years are less vulnerable to workplace abuse. Other common age brackets are 5-11 and 5-14 years of age.

The second chart presents global trends using estimates in two age brackets: 5-14 and 15-17 years of age. Unfortunately these global estimates are not broken down by gender, and are not available for other age brackets. However, the pattern is consistent with the remark made above: child labor was going down in previous years.

The share of economically active children in the world has been going down for decades

The ILO Programme on Estimates and Projections of the Economically Active Population (EPEAP) has been producing statistics on labor force participation (for adults and children) since 1950, through the ILO's cross-country database known as LABORSTA. Basu (1999) 4 uses this source to produce global labor force participation rates for children (ages 10-14) in the period 1950-1995.

This visualization presents the corresponding trend using the data published in Basu (1999).

While these estimates are informative about child labor, they cannot be linked directly to those of children in employment published by the ILO IPEC for the period 2000-2012 due to issues of comparability; specifically, the IPEC and EPEAP estimates discussed above rely on different survey instruments covering a different set of countries, and break up the relevant population in different age brackets.

Many studies rely on the LABORSTA data to shed light on the extent of child labor in the 20th century. However, this source is generally believed to understate the extent of child labor, since data is not collected for work inside the household (not even market work).

Nonetheless, regardless of discrepancies between these two sources, the trends tell a consistent story: the share of economically active children in the world has been going down for decades.

Where do children work?

Contrary to popular perception, most working children in the world are unpaid family workers, rather than paid workers in manufacturing establishments or other forms of wage employment. This visualization 5 shows a breakdown of 2012 global estimates of child labor by employment status.

Schultz and Strauss (2008) 6 compile information from a number of different sources (mostly country-specific datasets from national statistics offices—see the original paper for detailed sources) to provide a picture of the industrial composition of economically active children. This table 7 presents their results. In almost every listed country, a majority of economically active children work in agriculture, forestry, or fishing.

A point that is also worth emphasizing here is the lack of consistency in the age brackets for which child labor estimates are available.

Child labor across countries today

How does the incidence of child labor vary across countries.

This visualization shows the share of children (7-14 years) in employment for a number of countries (for the years in which data is publicly available from the World Bank consolidated dataset).

As can be seen, the prevalence of child labor varies widely by country; for instance, the share of children in employment (here defined in terms of being economically active for one hour a week) was fifteen times larger in Uganda than in Turkey according to 2006 estimates. While most countries exhibit a downward trend, many countries are lagging.

Switch to the map view in this chart to compare the level of child labor between countries.  Sub-Saharan Africa is the region where child labor is most prevalent, and also the region where progress has been slowest and least consistent.

What fraction of working children are not attending school?

As we discuss in more detail below , child labor is by definition problematic whenever it interferes with the children's development. Because of this it is informative to study child labor specifically when it is coupled with absence from school.

The visualization here shows the share of children in employment who work only (i.e. those children who are economically active and do not attend school).

Again, there is wide variation across countries; while in Latin America the majority of children who are economically active also attend school, in sub-Saharan Africa this is not the case. However, trends are encouraging on the whole, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa where the problem is most acute. The next section exploring correlates, determinants and consequences of child labor, provides more information about the link between work and school attendance.

How many hours do working children actually work?

The harmful consequences of child labor are partly determined by the intensity of work, and how it affects time allocation in other activities, such as playing or learning (more on this below ). Hence, to understand child labor it is crucial to understand time allocation.

The chart shows, country by country, the weekly average of hours worked by children (ages 7-14) who are economically active.

As we can see, average hours worked by children vary widely across countries, even at similar levels of GDP per capita . For example, while average incomes in Bangladesh and Nepal are roughly similar, in the former economically active children spend more than three times as much time working.

In fact, even across countries with similar labor force participation of children, differences in average hours worked are large.

Current gender gaps

In the majority of countries boys are more likely than girls to be engaged in economic activity. The visualization here presents the incidence of child employment for boys vs. girls by country, according to estimates made available by the World Bank.

The diagonal line marks equal values for boys and girls. We can see that most countries lie below the diagonal line.

Child labor and schooling

As has already been mentioned, child labor is particularly problematic to the extent that it hinders the children's development, notably by interfering with schooling. Since time is a scarce resource, the extent to which children's employment is linked to school attendance depends on the type and number of hours worked.

In countries where children tend to work longer hours, it is more common that working children remain out of school.

The chart here shows this by plotting country-level average hours worked by children against the share of working children who are out of school.

The chart shows aggregates, but we can see a similar relationship between school attendance and hours worked using micro data (i.e., plotting the relationship by pooling observations across individual households).

The visualization from Schultz and Strauss (2008) presents evidence of this link using micro data from UNICEF’s Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (2000 and 2001). 6 It plots school attendance rates for children 10–14 against total hours worked in the last week (by type of work) with 95 percent confidence intervals (labeled CI and plotted in lighter shades).

The steepest part of the curves are in the range 20-45 hours, suggesting — as one would naturally expect — that it is most difficult for a child to attend school when approaching full-time work. This evidence also shows that there are no significant differences by domestic or marketed work.

Is there a causal relationship between children's work and schooling?

The above relationship between work and schooling is informative about the impact of children's work on schooling, but is not sufficient to establish causality; there are many potential economic and cultural factors that simultaneously influence both schooling and work decisions. And in any case, the direction of the relationships is not obvious—do children work because they are not attending school, or do they fail to attend school because they are working?

A number of academic studies have tried to establish causality by attempting to find a factor (an 'instrumental variable') that only affects whether a child works without affecting how the family values other uses of the child's time. 8 While these studies can be criticized on the grounds of the validity of the instrumental variables used, they seem to agree on the fact that there is a stronger association between child labor and schooling than the raw data would suggest.

Child labor and income

Cross-country data on child labor and economic growth suggests a strong negative correlation between economic status and child labor.

The visualization depicts the cross-country incidence of child labor (share of children aged 7-14 involved in economic activity) against GDP per capita. To provide some context regarding the absolute number of children, each country's observation is pictured as a circle where the size of the circle represents the population aged 5-14.

This chart cannot be interpreted causally; as before, countries differ in many aspects that may be associated with child labor choices and income. But there are a number of reasons why, conceptually, child labor might indeed be caused by poor living conditions. For example, children might only work if the parents are unable to meet subsistence conditions; or it could be the case that parents allocate more of the children's time to schooling as they afford the necessary inputs for schooling (text-books, uniforms, etc).

Partly following this logic, several countries have implemented cash transfer programmes in an attempt to discourage child labor and increase schooling. The idea behind these programmes is that the cash transfers are conditioned on a number of desirable actions, including sending children to school; and in doing so, they lower the relative costs of schooling and raise family income.

Schultz (2004) 9 evaluates one such program in Mexico (the so-called 'Progresa' program) and  finds a significant reduction in wage and market work associated with eligibility for Progresa.

Definitions, Data Quality and Empirical Gaps

Definitions and measurement, general definition.

Broadly speaking, the term “child labor” is defined as the employment of children in any work that deprives them of their childhood and dignity, and that is harmful to their physical and mental development.

The ILO defines child labor as work that is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful to children; and that interferes with the children’s schooling by depriving them of the opportunity to attend school, either by obliging them to leave school prematurely, or by requiring them to attempt to combine school attendance with excessively long and heavy work (a general definition along these lines can be found in the ILO's Child Labour website ). The ILO’s Convention No. 138, adopted in 1973 and ratified by most countries of the world, stipulates the relevant ages that different countries use to define child labor.

Hours worked and age classification

According to the definition provided above, whether or not a given job is considered 'child labor' depends on the details of the actual context — the child’s age, the number of hours worked and the type of tasks performed. The chart here, from Hilowitz (2004) 10 , shows a diagrammatic classification of child labor (shaded region) depending on age and type of work.

This chart shows why it is difficult to produce estimates of child labor that are suitable for cross-country comparisons: there are differences in legislation, and age matters relative to the type of work.

According to the conceptual classification used by the ILO, children in child labor include those in worst forms of child labor and children in employment below the minimum age, excluding children in permissible light work — where "permissible light work" is defined as any non-hazardous work by children (ages 12 to 14) of less than 14 hours during the reference week (for more details see ILO-IPEC, Diallo, Y., et al. (2013)). 11

Global aggregates and cross-country data are not publicly available for 'children in child labor' as per the conceptual definition above. The ILO tends to report figures of economically active children for the broadest age bracket (5-17 years of age). The World Bank – World Development Indicators also report figures of economically active children, but use a narrower age definition (7-14 years of age). In both cases, 'economically active' refers to children who work for at least one hour during a reference week.

Because of the limitations of the data, academic studies often focus on children’s time allocation, which leaves more room for exploring the consequences of employment on other activities, such as school attendance. These studies tend to rely on country-specific survey data.

Terminology

Many studies distinguish between 'children in child labor' and 'children in employment', while using the terms 'working children', 'children in economic activity' and 'children in employment' interchangeably. In such cases, the former ('children in child labor') are considered a subset of the latter ('children in employment' or any of the aforementioned interchangeable terms).

As noted above, children in child labor include those in worst forms of child labor and children in employment below the minimum age, excluding children in permissible light work—where "permissible light work" is defined as any non-hazardous work by children (ages 12 to 14) of less than 14 hours during the reference week (for more details see ILO-IPEC, Diallo, Y., et al. (2013)). 11

Data quality

Schultz and Strauss (2008) provide a complete account of the particular challenges that arise from measuring children employment through household surveys. The authors highlight difficulties arising from coverage (i.e. capturing the most vulnerable children through random sampling) and accuracy (i.e. misreported hours worked and sensitivity to the recall period used).

Cunningham and Viazzo (1996) and Humphries (2010) 12 note similar challenges in the use of national census and household survey data for accurate coverage of the incidence of child labor. There remains a generally accepted consensus that census data is likely to underestimate the scale of child labor for several reasons. This is particularly important in case of later censuses, where national regulation required children to be in education; in this case, child labor was likely to be underreported, for fear of prosecution. These estimates therefore often underrepresent the numerous children, particularly girls, who worked unpaid at home. Since census results typically capture data from households, this often limits coverage to children who live within a family household. This can exclude children either orphaned, or living on the streets- in many cases, we might expect the incidence of child labor to be more prevalent in these demographics.

Specifically regarding the information published by the World Bank in their World Development Indicators, it is important to highlight that, while definitions are standardized (children in employment are always defined as those children aged 7-14 involved in economic activity for at least one hour in the reference week of the corresponding survey), the data-collection instruments are not standardized across the different sub-sources feeding the consolidated dataset. It is because of this that many policy reports (such as the much-referenced report Marking Progress Against Child Labour (2013) ) 'homogenize' the data before reporting estimates, by correcting for discrepancies in the underlying survey instruments. Those visualizations presented here that use the consolidated data published by the World Bank have not been corrected.

Issues of consistency across different survey instruments in the World Bank consolidated data can help us explain country-specific patterns that are otherwise difficult to interpret. Consider the case of India. As can be appreciated in this visualization, the incidence of child labor in India seems to jump up in 2006, only to go back in 2010 to the levels that would have been predicted with the observations from 2000 and 2005. After checking the survey catalog , it becomes clear that the estimates for 2006 come from the country's Demographic and Health Survey, while those for the other years come from consecutive rounds of the National Sample Survey. Cases such as this illustrate why current academic studies typically rely on data stemming from a single survey instrument, such as UNICEF's Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys.

Data and research gaps

In addition to the above-mentioned difficulties related to measurement, there are also important limitations in the way child labor data is made available.

As pointed out before , most UN reports publish global child labor estimates for custom age brackets, and only sometimes break down estimates by gender and type of work (including distinctions for ‘light work’, ‘hazardous work’, etc.). To our knowledge, there are no publicly available cross-country estimates of the evolution of child labor, broken down simultaneously by gender, age and type of work.

This is unfortunate, since a set of time-series constructed from ' contingency tables ' cutting across age, gender and type of work would give us a much better picture of where to focus our efforts to fight child labor. Constructing such tables should be straightforward from the depurated micro-data used to produce the existing global reports.

Relatedly, it would be similarly helpful if the depurated cross-country series published in the World Bank – World Development Indicators were expanded to account for more flexible definitions of economic activity beyond "one hour of work in the reference week".

Some exercises along these lines have already been undertaken in academia. As we discuss above , Schultz and Strauss (2008) present estimates of ‘children in economic activity’, by type of activity (market work and domestic work) and by number of hours worked. To do this, the authors used mainly UNICEF’s Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) from 2000 and 2001. It would be extremely helpful for researchers and policymakers if such exercises were updated and published regularly in open-access data portals.

Regarding gaps in empirical research, it is important to highlight the lack of robust evidence speaking to the consequences of child labor on future outcomes – such as the working children’s subsequent health and earnings in adulthood. Schultz and Strauss (2008) provide a summary of available evidence on this research front. The body of literature is thin and the econometric results tend to be fragile because of difficulties to establish causality.

A related research question for which there is little robust empirical evidence is whether child labor is the result of ‘agency problems’ – namely, whether children work because parents fail to fully consider the tradeoffs and costs that work has on their children.

Interactive charts on child labor

See Cunningham, Hugh, and Pier Paolo Viazzo. Child Labour in Historical Perspective 1800-1985: Case Studies from Europe, Japan and Colombia . No. hisper96/1. UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, 1996, and the references therein.

Lavalette, M (1999). A Thing of the Past? Child Labour in Britain in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Liverpool University Press.

ILO-IPEC, Marking progress against child labour - Global estimates and trends 2000-2012 / International Labour Office, International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) - Geneva: ILO, 2013.

Basu, Kaushik. Child labor: cause, consequence, and cure, with remarks on international labor standards. Journal of Economic literature 37.3 (1999): 1083-1119.

Figure 9 in  Marking Progress Against Child Labour (2013) )

Eric V. Edmonds "Child Labor", Chapter 57 in T. Paul Schultz, John Strauss (2008), Handbook of Development Economics, Volume 4. North Holland

Numbered as table 5 in Schultz and Strauss (2008)

Rosati, F., Rossi, M. (2003). Children’s working hours and school enrollment: Evidence from Pakistan and Nicaragua . World Bank Economic Review 17, 283–295.

Gunnarsson, V., Orazem, P., Sanchez, M. (2006). Child labor and school achievement in Latin America . World Bank Economic Review 20, 31–54.

Schultz, T.W. (2004). School subsidies for the poor: Evaluating the Mexican Progresa poverty program . Journal of Development Economics 74, 199–250.

Hilowitz, Janet. Child Labour: A textbook for university students. International Labour Office, 2004.

ILO-IPEC, Diallo, Y., et al. Global child labour trends 2008 to 2012 . ILO International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC). (Geneva, ILO, 2013).

Humphries, J., Childhood and child labor in the British industrial revolution (Cambridge, 2010)

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Child Labor Surges For The First Time In 20 Years. The Pandemic May Make That Worse.

Jaclyn Diaz

In this Nov. 13, 2017, AP file photo, a child collects palm kernels from the ground at a palm oil plantation in Sumatra, Indonesia. Indonesia is the world's largest palm oil producer. Binsar Bakkara/AP hide caption

In this Nov. 13, 2017, AP file photo, a child collects palm kernels from the ground at a palm oil plantation in Sumatra, Indonesia. Indonesia is the world's largest palm oil producer.

In 2020, the world marked a rise in child labor for the first time in two decades. Additionally, with the coronavirus pandemic upending economies and closing schools, the United Nations believes by 2022, the problem will get much worse.

An estimated 160 million children were involved in child labor around the world at the beginning of 2020--an increase of 8.4 million in four years, according to a new report by the UN and the International Labour Organization (ILO) . About half of those children were involved in hazardous work, like mining and farm work, that directly endangered their health and safety.

Children between the ages of five to 11 now account for just over half of the total global figure.

"The new estimates are a wake-up call. We cannot stand by while a new generation of children is put at risk," ILO Director-General Guy Ryder said in a statement.

COVID-19 has already been linked to children working longer hours or under worsening conditions because of job and income losses among vulnerable families. But by the end of 2022, nine million additional young people could be pushed into child labor because of the pandemic, the report says.

A simulation model, relying on pandemic-driven factors like a struggling economy, shows this number could rise to 46 million if they don't have access to critical social services, according to the UN and ILO.

Ryder called for "renewed commitment and energy to turn the corner and break the cycle of poverty and child labour."

He said policies that allow children to stay in school even in the midst of economic hardship, increased investment in rural development, and decent agricultural work are key to turning the tide.

The level of child labor is worse in sub-Saharan Africa

Despite the global picture, child labor in Asia, the Pacific, Latin America, and the Caribbean continues to trend downward thanks to more investments in education and child protection services.

But progress in sub-Saharan Africa has proved elusive due to high levels of poverty and HIV/AIDs, and conflict in the region, according to the report.

This region has more children in child labor than in the rest of the world combined, with 86.6 million young people aged five to 17, involved in child labor.

In sub-Saharan Africa, four out of every five children work in agriculture. This type of work exposes them to pesticides and other chemicals, extreme temperatures, and dangerous tools and machinery.

The United Nations says the COVID-19 pandemic risks significantly reducing gains made in the fight against child labor, putting millions of children at risk of being forced into exploitative and hazardous jobs. Brian Inganga/AP hide caption

The United Nations says the COVID-19 pandemic risks significantly reducing gains made in the fight against child labor, putting millions of children at risk of being forced into exploitative and hazardous jobs.

In the rest of the world, the agricultural sector accounts for the largest share of child labor at 70%. Another 19.7% work in services, like domestic work and transportation, and 10.3% work in industry, including mining, construction, and manufacturing.

Comparatively, in Europe and Northern America, just 3.8 million young people are involved in child labor.

More boys than girls are in child labor

If children live in rural areas, they are far more likely to be involved in child labor than their counterparts who live in urban areas. Minors living in rural areas are three times more likely to be working than those who live in cities.

Cesar, 13, places clay in a mold to make bricks at a factory in Tobati, Paraguay. Jorge Saenz/AP hide caption

Cesar, 13, places clay in a mold to make bricks at a factory in Tobati, Paraguay.

The child's gender also plays a factor in whether they work and what type of industry they are involved in. Young girls are more likely to be involved in domestic work and services, than mining or construction, the report says.

About 34 million boys are involved in child labor compared to girls, according to the report. The gender gap grows with age, and boys are roughly twice as likely as girls to be in child labor in the 15 to 17 age range.

Child Labor

The Economic Policy Institute’s child labor research examines the role of strong labor standards in ensuring equal economic and educational opportunity for all children. Our work, including ground-breaking research, thought leadership, and advocacy, is focused on assessing the strengths or weaknesses of existing state and federal child labor policies, documenting ongoing coordinated attacks on protections for young workers, and proposing reforms to advance children’s rights to safe, age-appropriate work and fair compensation. As part of this agenda, EPI works in close coordination with partners in the Economic Analysis and Research Network (EARN) and in national child labor coalitions, provides expert analysis to the media and other stakeholders, and seeks to raise awareness through public events.

Child labor remains a key state legislative issue in 2024

State lawmakers must seize opportunities to strengthen standards, resist ongoing attacks on child labor laws |  read the blog, three states have enacted child labor rollbacks so far in 2024 : thirty states have introduced bills to weaken child labor protections since 2021.

Note : "Enacted*" indicates that a state has enacted a bill, but other bills in that state have failed or are pending legislative action. "Mixed" indicates that a state has multiple bills at different stages of the legislative process, but none have been enacted. Map last updated April 11, 2024.

Source: EPI analysis of state legislative activity and news related to child labor legislation.

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Sixteen states have proposed measures to address weak and outdated child labor laws in 2024 alone : Map of state legislation strengthening child labor protections, 2021–2024

Notes : "Enacted*" indicates that a state has enacted a bill, but other bills in that state have failed or are pending legislative action. "Mixed" indicates that a state has multiple bills at different stages of the legislative process, but none have been enacted. Map last updated April 11, 2024.

By Content:

Policies for states and localities to fight oppressive child labor, child labor remains a key state legislative issue in 2024 : state lawmakers must seize opportunities to strengthen standards, resist ongoing attacks on child labor laws, youth subminimum wages and why they should be eliminated : young workers face pay discrimination in 34 states and dc, top epi reports and blogs in 2023 : child labor, economics of abortion bans, and teacher pay among the most read epi research, the rise of u.s. child labor, and how we can fight back, as some states attack child labor protections, other states are strengthening standards, florida legislature proposes dangerous rollback of child labor protections : at least 16 states have introduced bills putting children at risk, states across the country are quietly lowering the alcohol service age : an industry already rife with abuse—including child labor law violations—would like your server to be an underage teenager, iowa governor signs one of the most dangerous rollbacks of child labor laws in the country : 14 states have now introduced bills putting children at risk, child labor laws are under attack in states across the country : amid increasing child labor violations, lawmakers must act to strengthen standards.

Advancing social justice, promoting decent work ILO is a specialized agency of the United Nations

These guidelines are intended to help researchers and organizations, including national statistics offices, to design and implement studies and data collection tools that are ethically sound and appropriate to collect information about child labour.

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• ISBN: 978-92-2-039609-4 (pdf web)
• GLO/18/29/USA, GLO/18/20/USA

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Child labour rises to 160 million – first increase in two decades, the international labour organization and unicef warn that the pandemic context may threaten nepal’s progress in eradicating child labour.

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Kathmandu, 11 June 2021 – The number of children in child labour has risen to 160 million worldwide – an increase of 8.4 million children in the last four years – with millions more at risk due to the impacts of COVID-19, according to a new report by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and UNICEF.

Child Labour: Global estimates 2020, trends and the road forward – released ahead of World Day Against Child Labour on 12 th June – warns that progress to end child labour has stalled for the first time in 20 years, reversing the previous downward trend that saw child labour fall by 94 million between 2000 and 2016.

The report points to a significant rise in the number of children aged 5 to 11 years in child labour, who now account for just over half of the total global figure. The number of children aged 5 to 17 years in hazardous work – defined as work that is likely to harm their health, physical safety and psychological wellbeing – has risen by 6.5 million to 79 million since 2016.

“These new estimates indicate that despite the increasing commitment and efforts by governments, the social partners and civil society to tackle child labour, the problem remains on a massive scale, said ILO Director for Country Office in Nepal Richard Howard. “This situation represents an intolerable violation of the rights of individual children, it perpetuates poverty and it compromises economic growth and equitable development. It is high time for all of us to join forces and implement programmes to address vulnerabilities associated with child labour, including lack of social protection and decent work opportunities for families vulnerable to poverty and exclusion.”

The report warns that globally, 9 million additional children are at risk of being pushed into child labour by the end of 2022 as a result of the pandemic. A simulation model shows this number could rise to 46 million if they don’t have access to critical social protection coverage.

Even in regions where there has been some headway since 2016, such as Asia and the Pacific, and Latin America and the Caribbean, COVID-19 is endangering that progress.

In Nepal, the pandemic is also impacting on the progress in eradicating child labour. Indeed, the Nepal Child Labour Report 2021, a joint publication of the ILO and Central Bureau of Statistics shows a declining trend of overall child labour in Nepal, reaching 1.1 million in 2018 from 1.6 million in 2008. A significant decline is observed in the number of children in hazardous occupations (0.62 million in 2008 to 0.22 million in 2018).

This important progress made is now challenged by the socioeconomic realities of the COVID 19 pandemic. Children in child labour are at risk of physical and mental harm. Child labour compromises children’s education, restricting their rights and limiting their future opportunities, and leads to vicious inter-generational cycles of poverty and child labour.

“Preventing child labour and protecting children from the associated risks of physical and mental harm, school drop-out and exploitation were already major challenges prior to COVID-19. As the new data shows, the severe socio-economic impact of the pandemic has hit families with children particularly hard. According to the rapid Child & Family Tracker survey carried out in late May, over 50 per cent of families across Nepal have lost jobs and related livelihoods in the current context.” said Elke Wisch, UNICEF Representative in Nepal. “Increased economic hardship combined with school closures caused by COVID-19 place children already in child labour at increased risk of working longer hours or under worsening conditions, while many more may be forced into the worst forms of child labour due to job and income losses among vulnerable families. Our collective success in combatting COVID-19 needs to also be measured in the number of families we are supporting through these dire circumstances and the girls and boys who can continue to strive, grow and develop. This is not out of reach – It can be achieved through our collective investment in programmes that not only get children out of the workforce and back into school, but also social work and social protection programmes that can help families avoid making this choice in the first place.”

To reverse the upward trend in child labour, the ILO and UNICEF are calling for:

• Adequate social protection for all, including universal child benefits and eligibility criteria taking into account households socio-economic characteristics.
• Increased spending on quality education and getting all children back into school - including children who were out of school before COVID-19.
• Promotion of decent work for adults, so families don’t have to resort to children helping to generate family income.
• An end to harmful gender norms and discrimination that influence child labour.
• Investment in child protection systems, social work, agricultural development, rural public services, infrastructure and livelihoods.

As part of the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour , the global partnership Alliance 8.7 , of which UNICEF and ILO are partners, is encouraging member States, business, trade unions, civil society, and regional and international organizations to redouble their efforts in the global fight against child labour by making concrete action pledges.

Nepal is a pathfinder country of the Global Alliance 8.7 Alliance. This year, more than ever it is critical to expand the path to opportunities, safety and care for all the children of Nepal.   

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