Child labor is a social and economic problem of immense proportions. That an 8:00 a.m. session on the topic could attract an audience of fifty testifies to the level of interest on the topic. The session was chaired by Stephen Havlovic of the University of Wisconsin, Whitewater. Presenters were Hugh Hindman of Appalachian State University; Kenneth Swinnerton, a research economist at the Department of Labor; and Frank Hagemann, a policy analyst at the International Labour Organization. Linda Golodner, General Secretary of the National Consumers League, served as discussant. Each presenter offered insights into what we already know about child labor but may not yet clearly understand, and suggested aspects of the problem that we need to learn more about.In “Global Child Labor: Past as Prologue,” Hindman draws on his research on child labor in U.S. history to suggest past lessons that may be applicable to the problem of child labor in the world today. He asserts that “the child-labor problem” is a problem of industrialization - that industrialization creates “the child-labor problem,” but also that continued industrialization ultimately resolves the problem. All advanced industrialized nations went through a stage of pervasive child labor during early industrialization; but all have, more or less, come to grips with the problem. He suggests how U.S. history may be especially instructive about certain aspects of today’s global child-labor problem.
