Consuming Childhoods: An Assessment of Child Labor's Role in Indian Production and Global Consumption

Abstract

Summary Although evidence indicates the significant incidence of child labor in India, the role it plays in the economy is still considerably unknown. This study used disaggregated labor data and evaluated local and global supply chains to develop the first comprehensive and systematic assessment of Indian child labor involved in the production of commodities consumed worldwide, considering trade between more than 15,000 industrial sectors across 189 countries. Five questions were addressed: Which children are in child labor?; What is being produced with that labor?; Who are the final consumers?; What amount of financial resources would be needed to support these children?; and What would be the increase in labor production costs if adults were to replace children? It was found that of 9,687,688 children in child labor during July 2011 to June 2012, 95% of cases were linked to the production of just 35 commodities. Whereas most of these commodities were locally consumed, as many as 980,084 children (around 10%) worked for exports, more than what is typically assumed. Exports mainly consisted of agricultural and food products, clothing, minerals, and construction materials and were predominantly destined to 26 countries, the United States ranking first. Nonetheless, this study supports the notion that the simple removal of foreign demand will not solve the problem; it is poverty that needs to be addressed. Supporting children with allowances equal to their earnings would require 935 billion Indian Rupees, within a 13‐year period. If adult workers were to replace children, total production costs may increase only by around 1%.

Linking Local Consumption to Global Impacts

“…; Gomez‐Paredes et al. ; Prell and Feng ) or discuss inequality in income and consumption and associated environmental impacts (López et al. ).…”

“…The industrial ecology community has only recently discovered an interest in social indicators. This issue includes a number of articles that deal with social issues associated with consumption and production along global supply chains (Alsamawi et al 2015;Gomez-Paredes et al 2016;Prell and Feng 2015) or discuss inequality in income and consumption and associated environmental impacts (López et al 2016).…”

“…) and the other MRIO study develops a child labor footprint (Gomez‐Paredes et al. ). We also have an LCA (Harclerode et al.…”

“…Gomez‐Paredes and colleagues (), in “Consuming childhoods: An assessment of child labor's role in Indian production and global consumption,” use sectoral labor data and global MRIO analysis to explore child labor, its embodiment in commodities, and their destination. They find that most products are consumed locally and associated with a small number of commodities.…”

“…This is a relatively new, but exciting, strand of industrial ecology research that focuses on inequality and social issues. In this group of articles, we have two MRIO analyses; one study calculates an accident footprint associated with export production and associated transport (Alsamawi et al 2015) and the other MRIO study develops a child labor footprint (Gomez-Paredes et al 2016). We also have an LCA (Harclerode et al 2015) that includes the social costs of carbon, assessing different alternative technologies.…”