Say that you are in favor of child labor and people will probably look at you as if you have suggested bringing back the coal mines of Victorian England.
The phrase immediately produces images of exhausted children working long hours in dangerous factories, mines and sweatshops. Those abuses were real, and similar exploitation unfortunately continues in parts of the world today.
But there is a problem with the way we discuss child labor: we often lump completely different kinds of work together.
There is an enormous difference between a 10-year-old being forced to work 12 hours in a dangerous factory and a 15-year-old working Saturday afternoon selling popcorn at a movie theatre.
I am completely opposed to the first.
I see considerable value in the second.
Perhaps what we need isn’t an end to young people working. Perhaps we need a more sensible distinction between exploitation and employment.
Not All Child Labor Is the Same
This distinction isn’t something I invented.
The International Labour Organization itself says that not all work performed by children should be classified as child labour. Work that doesn’t harm a young person’s health or development and doesn’t interfere with schooling can be positive.
The ILO specifically mentions helping in a family business and earning spending money outside school hours or during holidays. Such work can provide skills and experience and help prepare young people for adult life.
That’s an important distinction.
Hazardous work, forced labor, trafficking, dangerous machinery, excessive hours and work that prevents children from attending school are entirely different issues. Those practices deserve condemnation and legal protection against them.
But babysitting?
Working at an ice cream shop?
Selling popcorn at a movie theatre?
Delivering newspapers?
Helping customers at a golf club?
Working a few hours at a clothing store?
Why should we automatically consider those experiences harmful?
Child Labor Can Teach Skills School Doesn’t
One of the strongest arguments for appropriate teenage employment is that a first job teaches things that are difficult to learn from a textbook.
Consider what a teenager can learn from working eight or ten hours a week:
- Showing up on time
- Dealing with customers
- Following instructions
- Handling money
- Working with people they don’t necessarily like
- Taking responsibility for a specific task
- Managing a schedule
- Solving small problems without calling Mom or Dad
- Understanding what things actually cost
- Experiencing the satisfaction of earning their own money
Those are not trivial skills.
They are fundamental adult skills.
We frequently say that education should prepare young people for life. If that’s true, shouldn’t actual work experience count as part of that education?
What’s the Alternative?
When discussing child labor, we should also consider the opportunity cost.
Suppose a teenager spends eight hours every Saturday working at a movie theatre. Critics might say, “That’s eight hours of childhood she’s losing.”
Maybe.
But what would she otherwise have done with those eight hours?
Perhaps she would have played sports, read a book, spent time with friends or pursued a hobby. Those can certainly be worthwhile activities.
But she might also have spent eight hours playing video games, scrolling through TikTok or watching YouTube.
The relevant comparison isn’t between working and some imaginary childhood filled entirely with books, sunshine, sports and meaningful conversations.
It’s between working and whatever the teenager would actually have been doing with those hours.
A reasonable part-time job can provide social interaction, responsibility, structure, skills and money.
That doesn’t sound like such a terrible trade.
“But Work Is Boring”
Another objection is that children deserve to enjoy childhood rather than spending their time performing boring tasks.
Fair enough.
But have you ever met a teenager who thought every hour of school was fascinating?
Children spend thousands of hours sitting in classrooms. They study subjects they may have little interest in. They do homework they don’t want to do. They sit through lessons they find boring.
When a teenager complains about school, adults frequently respond with some variation of:
“That’s life. You have to learn discipline.”
Yet if that same teenager spends four hours stocking shelves or washing dishes, suddenly boredom becomes evidence that society is exploiting children.
Why?
If performing an unpleasant task builds discipline in school, couldn’t performing an occasionally unpleasant task at work build discipline too?
And unlike algebra homework, the teenager gets a paycheck at the end of the week.
The Strange Double Standard Between School and Work
There seems to be a curious double standard.
Society is comfortable requiring young people to wake up early, sit where they’re told, follow instructions, meet deadlines, complete assignments and perform tasks they don’t necessarily enjoy—as long as we call it education.
Introduce a paycheck and suddenly many of those same characteristics become suspicious.
I’m not arguing that employment should replace education.
I’m arguing that education and employment can complement each other.
A classroom can teach mathematics.
A job can teach what happens when the cash register is $20 short.
A classroom can teach writing.
A job can teach you how to communicate with an irritated customer.
A teacher can explain responsibility.
An employer can give you a responsibility where somebody is actually depending on you.
Both forms of learning have value.
A Real Example: Cheryl’s Teenage Jobs
My dance partner, Cheryl Williams, worked several jobs as a teenager.
She babysat. She washed dishes. She also worked at a jean store selling jeans.
Her brother had a newspaper route and later worked at a golf club helping customers.
None of these jobs were glamorous.
But that’s almost the point.
They learned how to show up. They learned how to deal with customers. They learned time management and workplace responsibility. They experienced what it was like to earn money rather than simply receive it.
Those experiences increased their independence and confidence.
Looking back at those jobs, I don’t see a childhood tragedy.
I see education.
Your First Boss Can Be an Important Teacher
The first boss in your life can teach lessons that your parents cannot.
When your mother tells you to clean your room, you can argue.
When your manager tells you that customers are waiting and the tables need cleaning, you discover that the world doesn’t revolve around your preferences.
That’s useful.
Young people eventually need to learn that other people have expectations of them. Coworkers depend on them. Customers don’t necessarily care that they’re tired. Employers expect them to arrive when they say they will.
These lessons can sometimes sound harsh.
But adulthood contains all of them.
A safe first job allows teenagers to encounter these realities gradually, while they still have the support of parents, teachers and family.
Work Can Build Financial Independence
There’s another advantage that shouldn’t be ignored: money.
Earning your first $100 feels very different from being given $100.
When teenagers work for their money, prices suddenly acquire meaning.
A $70 pair of shoes isn’t simply $70 anymore. It might represent seven hours of work.
That realization can teach financial literacy in a way that lectures about saving rarely accomplish.
Teenagers can learn to divide their earnings between spending and saving. They can make financial mistakes while the consequences are still relatively small.
I’d rather see someone learn at 16 that spending every paycheck immediately is a bad strategy than discover the same lesson at 30 with credit-card debt.
Work Experience Makes Entering Adulthood Easier
Eventually every young person enters the labor market.
Imagine two 20-year-olds applying for their first serious job.
One has never worked.
The other has spent several summers working in restaurants and retail. She has dealt with customers, supervisors, schedules, mistakes and difficult coworkers.
Which one is likely to find the transition easier?
The second young adult already understands many unwritten rules of employment.
She knows that being “on time” doesn’t mean walking through the door three minutes late.
She understands that sometimes you have to do boring tasks.
She knows how to speak to customers.
She knows what having a boss feels like.
She has already made beginner mistakes—when the stakes were relatively low.
That’s valuable human capital.
When Child Labor Really Is Wrong
None of this means children should be treated as cheap labor.
There are obvious boundaries.
Work becomes unacceptable when it is dangerous, coercive, abusive, excessively demanding or seriously interferes with a child’s education, sleep, health or normal development.
A child working underground in a mine is not equivalent to a teenager serving ice cream after school.
A child forced to work because an employer can exploit his vulnerability is not equivalent to a teenager voluntarily babysitting the neighbor’s children.
The International Labour Organization makes essentially this distinction. It defines hazardous child labour around factors such as dangerous environments, heavy loads, dangerous machinery, abuse, excessive hours and work that harms health, safety or development.
Those protections make sense.
The objective should therefore not be no work before adulthood.
It should be safe, age-appropriate work under reasonable conditions.
We Should Be More Open to Young People Working
Maybe the phrase child labor has become so associated with exploitation that it prevents us from having a sensible conversation.
If so, call it youth employment.
Call it teenage work.
Call it a Saturday job.
The terminology matters less than the principle.
There is nothing inherently cruel about a young person exchanging a few hours of time and effort for money.
Work can teach independence, confidence, financial literacy, responsibility, customer service, communication and time management.
Of course, children need time to study.
They need sleep.
They need friends.
They need exercise.
They need hobbies, family and unstructured time.
But these things aren’t incompatible with working a few hours per week.
We shouldn’t romanticize the brutal child labor of the 19th century, nor should we tolerate its modern equivalents.
But we shouldn’t make the opposite mistake either: assuming that protecting children means shielding teenagers from every boring task, difficult customer, demanding boss or unpleasant Saturday afternoon.
Growing up means gradually acquiring responsibilities.
A first job can be one of the best places to start.
Perhaps we don’t need to bring back child labor.
Perhaps we need to bring back the teenage job.
Frequently Asked Questions About Child Labor
Is all child labor harmful?
No. There is an important distinction between hazardous or exploitative child labor and safe, age-appropriate work. International standards themselves recognize that some light work and non-hazardous employment can provide young people with useful skills and experience.
What can teenagers learn from having a job?
Teenagers can develop time management, customer service, communication, financial literacy, reliability, problem-solving and workplace responsibility. They also gain experience dealing with supervisors, coworkers and customers.
Can having a job interfere with school?
It can if the hours are excessive or poorly scheduled. The goal should therefore be reasonable part-time employment that leaves adequate time for education, sleep and normal development rather than treating school and employment as mutually exclusive.
What kinds of jobs are appropriate for teenagers?
Age-appropriate examples can include babysitting, retail, movie theatres, restaurants, newspaper delivery, recreation facilities, summer jobs and certain family businesses, provided the work is legal, safe, appropriately supervised and doesn’t involve hazardous conditions.
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