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Title: Child Labor: Labor Can Strengthen Its Efforts to Protect Children Who Work
Resulting in 1 citation.
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General Accounting Office |
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Child Labor: Labor Can Strengthen Its Efforts to Protect Children Who Work Report GAO-02-880 to the Chairman, Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, Committee on Appropriations, US Senate, September 2002. Washington DC: General Accouting Office, 2002. Also: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02880.pdf Cohort(s): NLSY97 Publisher: General Accounting Office (GAO) (pre July 2004) Keyword(s): Child Labor; Children, Academic Development; Current Population Survey (CPS) / CPS-Fertility Supplement; Educational Attainment; Ethnic Differences; Injuries; Job Hazards; Legislation; Part-Time Work; Work Experience; Working Conditions In 2001, almost 40 percent of all 16- and 17-year-olds in the United States and many 14- and 15-year-olds worked at some time in the year. Children in the United States are often encouraged to work and many people believe that children benefit from early work experiences by developing independence, confidence, and responsibility. However, the public also wants to ensure that the work experiences of young people enhance, rather than harm, their future opportunities. Over 200,000 children are injured on the job each year and about 70 die as a result of their injuries, according to a recent report by the Department of Labor. In addition, while work can have a positive effect on academic achievement, working too many hours may adversely affect children's educational attainment. To protect children from such harmful effects, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), with provisions on child labor, was enacted in 1938. These provisions established the minimum age at which children can work, limited the number of hours and times of day they can work, and prohibited them from performing work defined as hazardous. It also made the Secretary of Labor responsible for defining work that is too hazardous for children and for enforcing the provisions of the law. You asked us to update information from our 1991 reports on child labor by providing information on (1) how the number and characteristics of working children in the United States have changed over the past decade, (2) whether the number and characteristics of work-related injuries to children have changed over this same time period, and (3) how well Labor enforces the child labor provisions of FLSA. To obtain this information, we analyzed data on the characteristics of, and injuries to, children obtained from Labor?s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and injury data from the Department of Health and Human Services? National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH); reviewed the child labor provisions of FLSA and its implementing regulations, agency documents, information from Labor?s investigations database, and individual case files; interviewed Labor officials in Washington, D.C., and 11 field offices (5 regions and 6 district offices), officials from NIOSH, and other experts on child labor; and developed estimates of the number of children who are employed illegally by comparing BLS data on working children to the child labor provisions of FLSA. Most of the estimates in the report were calculated using data obtained from samples and, therefore, have sampling errors associated with them. All differences included in the report were tested for statistical significance at the 0.05 level. See app. I for detailed information on our analysis, including its limitations. We conducted our work from September 2001 to August 2002 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. |
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Bibliography Citation
General Accounting Office. Child Labor: Labor Can Strengthen Its Efforts to Protect Children Who Work. Report GAO-02-880 to the Chairman, Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, Committee on Appropriations, US Senate, September 2002. Washington DC: General Accouting Office, 2002.. |