Child labor is the practice of having children engages in economic activity, on a part- or full-time basis. The practice deprives children of their childhood, and is harmful to their physical and mental development. Poverty, lack of good schools and the growth of the informal economy are considered to be the key causes of child labor in India.

In twenty-first century American society, childhood is popularly understood as a time of innocence, learning, and play. At the end of the nineteenth century, however, children made up part of the country’s workforce, and labored on farms and in factories. When they were not working, they enjoyed great independence in leisure activities—be it in a loud city street or a peaceful country lake. Often, children were far from adult supervision. Reformers during the Progressive Er—a period of social activism and political reform across the United States between the 1890s and 1920s —took a great interest in child welfare. Through organizations and legislation, they sought to define what a happy and healthy childhood should be in the modern age. Immersion in nature was central to what the Progressives prescribed, and children’s organizations and camps offered a suitable combination of supervision and open spaces. The formula for a healthy childhood was further refined in postwar America. Children were given a distinct place in the family and home, as well as within the consumer market with the emergence of teenage culture and buying power. This exhibition was created as part of the DPLA's Public Library Partnerships Project by collaborators from the Digital Library of Georgia and Georgia's public libraries.

Students will examine historical photographs and a data table related to 19th-century industrialization and child labor. They will observe and analyze the primary sources and ask questions. This activity could be used near the beginning of a unit on industrialization or the Progressives.

Students present monologues in the "voice" of someone involved in child labor in England, respond to questions, and then discuss contemporary child laborers and compare them to the past.

Trade issues occasionally dominate and are a continuing theme of the international scene: the global market, sweatshops, child labor, trade deficits, the euro, sanctions, tariffs, embargoes, and the EU, NAFTA, WTO, the seemingly endless alphabet of interest groups, treaties, organizations, and trade agreements. As a classroom topic, international trade has the great advantage of providing ready-made material for teachers wanting to engage student interest in current events. On the other hand, the complexity of the issues surrounding trade is daunting. While economic reasoning doesn't guarantee resolution of the issues, it is a powerful tool of critical thinking that brings clarity to the discussion of current events. The ability to determine comparative advantage through opportunity cost, the ability to identify incentives and predict resulting behavior, and the ability to use supply and demand analysis of particular labor and resource markets, help students to set aside the emotion of international trade issues and cut through the rhetoric of media reports.

This is an article about women during the progressive era responding to the problem of child labor.

14.01 Principles of Microeconomics is an introductory undergraduate course that teaches the fundamentals of microeconomics. This course introduces microeconomic concepts and analysis, supply and demand analysis, theories of the firm and individual behavior, competition and monopoly, and welfare economics. Students will also be introduced to the use of microeconomic applications to address problems in current economic policy throughout the semester.
This course is a core subject in MIT’s undergraduate Energy Studies Minor. This Institute-wide program complements the deep expertise obtained in any major with a broad understanding of the interlinked realms of science, technology, and social sciences as they relate to energy and associated environmental challenges.
Course Format
This course has been designed for independent study. It includes all of the materials you will need to understand the concepts covered in this subject. The materials in this course include:

A complete set of Lecture Videos by Prof. Jon Gruber.
Reading Assignments in your choice of two textbooks – one of which is a free online edition - as preparation for the lectures.
Multiple-choice Quizzes to assess your understanding of the key concepts in each session.
Problem Sets with solution keys to test your ability to apply to concepts covered in lecture, and Problem Solving Videos to provide step-by-step instruction through several problem set solutions.
A collection of links For Further Study to provide supplemental online content.
A full set of Exams, including review material and practice exams to help you prepare.

This course explores the issue of human trafficking for forced labour and sexual slavery, focusing on its representation in recent scholarly accounts and advocacy as well as in other media. Ethnographic and fictional readings along with media analysis help to develop a contextualized and comparative understanding of the phenomena in both past and present contexts. It examines the wide range of factors and agents that enable these practices, such as technology, cultural practices, social and economic conditions, and the role of governments and international organizations. The course also discusses the analytical, moral and methodological questions of researching, writing, and representing trafficking and slavery.

In this video from Wide Angle, visit a makeshift night school in rural India designed to allow child laborers who work during the day to obtain an education.

All of these children are part of U.S. child labor history, where many children were exploited by companies, working long 10-12, sometimes 16 hours shifts for as little as pennies a day. These kids were exploited until unions and federal and state labor laws protected kids. From 1870 – 1890, child labor increased three fold. 1870 was the 1st U.S. census that reported child labor statistics, and 750,000 children worked. Child labor peaked in 1900 when 18.2% of all U.S. kids under the age of 16 WORKED, often at very dangerous jobs.

Students will discuss child labor in the United States as represented in an early-20th-century photograph, research and write a story based on the issue of child labor, and participate in a mock news broadcast in response to the works of art.