Excerpted by Prass

Problems surrounding children seem to continue burgeoning from time to time. The International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 138 clearly specifies that fifteen years old as the age below which a person participating actively in economic activity shall be considered a child laborer. ILO global estimates indicate that in the year 2000, there were 211 million of children found to be at work and involved in economic activities, out of which 186 million of them were child laborers. Economic activity itself encompasses most productive activities done by children such as the unpaid, the casual, and the illegal work, as well as the work in the informal sectors. All the aforementioned ILO estimates however, do not cover children working in non-economic activities mainly due to the fragmented global data on the extent of non-economic child work. ILO estimates however, are still in line with international labor standards which provide for exceptions for household chores in the child’s own household.

There is a rich collection of literatures on the topic of child labor which look at various determinants of child’s work and schooling; ranging from birth order, parental schooling, family wealth, credit constraints to trade and globalization (see, for instance, Edmonds and Nina Pavcnik, 2004).

In the year 2000, ILO finds that slightly more than half of working children of age 10-14 years in Indonesia combine work and schooling, while the remaining either have no schooling or are no longer in school. In addition, more than 60% of child laborers have also been recorded as unpaid family workers and this percentage reached the peak of 76.50% in 1998 and fell to 69% in 2000. The peak in 1998 might be attributable to the 1997/1998 economic crisis which was likely to have forced many family businesses to cut costs by engaging their children to help out instead. Overall, there has been a declining employment rate among the 10-14 years old from 8% in 1996 to 4.7% in 2000, in which the percentage distributions are clearly shown in the following table:

Table: 01

Child Workers by Year dan Status of Employment, 1996 – 2000 by Percentage

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

Self employed

16.47

10.77

11.78

14.15

15.91

Employer

0.77

0.84

2.31

0.62

Paid employees

13.84

12.93

11.72

10.90

14.07

Unpaid Family Workers

68.92

75.46

76.50

72.64

69.41

As for working hours, ILO shows that between 0-34 work hours, the percentage distribution is higher in rural areas, but this trend reverses itself for 35 work hours onwards. Children in urban areas thus worked longer hours than their counterparts in the rural regions. These results are summarized in the following Table.

Table 2

Distribution of Weekly Work Hours of Children Aged 10 – 14 Years, Conditional, On Areas (2000)

Work hours

Urban

Rural

Urban + Rural

<10 hours

5.40%

13.50%

11.60%

10-24 hours

18.99%

36.77%

32.61%

25-34 hours

7.12%

16.30%

14.15%

35-54 hours

40.92%

28.13%

31.13%

>= 55 hours

27.57%

5.30%

10.52%

Work hours@ week

43 hours

27 hours

31 hours

In addition, according the Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) Indonesia Children Welfare Indicator 2000, the size of the labor force of children aged 10-14 years old has declined between 1999 and 2000, for both urban and rural regions. However, for those children not in the labor force, there is a significant fall in the percentage of children aged 10-14 years who are enrolled in school, from 85% to 80%. More children are now recorded to be engaged in housekeeping and other activities. In reconciliation of the two results by BPS and ILO, an inference can be drawn that although the size of the labor force for the rural areas is larger than that in urban areas, within the labor force itself, a higher percentage of urban child laborers are actually working longer hours as compared to those in rural areas.

Table 3

Distribution of Children Aged 10 – 14 Years  According to Past Week Activities, 1999 – 2000

Urban

Rural

Urban + Rural

1999

2000

1999

2000

1999

2000

Total No. of Children (in thousands)

8, 035

8,060

14,177

12,799

22,212

20,859

(100%)

(100%)

(100%)

(100%)

(100%)

(100%)

Labor Force (% out of total number of children:
Employed

2.86

2.13

9.18

7.78

6.90

5.60

Look for work

0.55

0.34

0.77

0.37

0.69

0.36

Not in labor force (% out of total children
Schooling

91.44

85.90

80.61

77.63

84.53

80.83

Housekeeping and Other

5.14

11.63

9.43

14.22

7.88

13.21

Children Welfare Indicator 2000 also breaks down the distribution of children according to their gender and major occupational sectors, as shown in the following table 4 below. This table indicates that for boys, they are likely to be found working in agricultural sector whereas for girls, they tend to work in manufacturing and services such as becoming factory workers or as domestic helpers.

Table 4

Sectoral Distribution of Children Aged 10 – 14 Who Work for the Past Week, By Gender (1999 – 2000)

Gender

Agriculture

Manufacturing Industry

Services

1999

2000

1999

2000

1999

2000

Male

76.31

79.59

9.62

8.99

14.07

11.42

Female

55.94

59.54

15.19

15.94

28.87

24.51

 M + F

68.47

72.01

11.77

11.62

19.76

16.37

Note: M – Male, F: Female

As shown in the following table 5, the Welfare Indicator also notes that for those children aged 10-14 years, there is a higher percentage of girls working more than 45 hours as compared to boys. This could potentially be contributed to the fact that girls may tend to work as domestic helpers or factory workers which involve much longer working hours each day, as compared to the agricultural sector which is dominated by boys. It is worth noting as well that the overall number of child labourers in Indonesia itself fell from 1.5 million in 1999 to 1.2 million in 2000. These results are captured in the following table.

Table 5

Work Hours of Children Aged 10 – 14 Who worked for the Past Week, by Gender, 1999 – 2000

Gender

Year

Working Hours

No. of Child Workers

0*

1-24

25- 34

35-44

45+

Male

1999

1.35

69.97

13.45

8.06

7.18

942,659 (100%)

2000

1.37

67.95

14.58

8.61

7.49

726,158 (100%)

Female

1999

1.55

68.34

11.62

8.25

10.24

589,608 (100%)

2000

1.52

69.38

10.92

7.82

10.36

441,598 (100%)

Male + Female

1999

1.42

69.34

12.74

8.14

8.36

1,532,267 (100%)

2000

1.42

68.49

13.20

8.31

8.58

1,167,756 (100%)

Note: 0* = temporary not working

Note: Compiled from various sources.