research title about child labor in the philippines

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The Impact of Productive Assets and Training on Child Labor in the Philippines

Around the world, 152 million children are engaged in child labor, and in the Philippines many of the children working illegally are in occupations that pose a threat to their health and safety. Because poverty is considered to be the root cause of child labor, policymakers have aimed to reduce child labor by improving the economic welfare of poor households that are using or vulnerable to using child labor. In the Philippines, an IPA research team worked with the government to test whether providing poor households with a one-time productive asset transfer equivalent to US$518, along with a short business training, improved economic well-being and reduced in child labor. Preliminary results indicate that the program increased household business activity, food security, and some measures of child welfare, but it also led to a modest increase in child labor from family-based economic activities, specifically for children who had not worked before.  

Policy Issue

The elimination of child labor in all its forms is one of the measurable targets for the UN Sustainable Development Goal 8: “Promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth, employment and decent work for all.” Widespread child labor in low-income countries is thought to damper future economic growth through its negative impact on child development. Child labor also depresses economic growth by discouraging the adoption of skill-intensive technologies, while lowering wages in low-skill sectors. Because poverty is considered the root cause of child labor, policymakers have aimed to reduce child labor by improving the economic welfare of poor households. This study aimed to shed light on whether sustainable livelihoods promotion can stop child labor where it already exists, which many other interventions have failed to do, and prevent it from occurring in households that are vulnerable to using child labor.

Context of the Evaluation

Despite strong economic progress over the last several decades, one in five Filipino families remain below the poverty line, and a 2011 study found 2.1 million Filipino children were engaged in unlawful child labor. Sixty-two percent worked in hazardous labor activities where chemical, physical, and biological hazards exist. 1

The Philippine government is a global leader in the discussion of anti-child labor policies through the Philippine Department of Labor and Employment’s (DOLE) Kabuhayan Para sa Magulang ng Batang Manggagawa (KASAMA) Program. This program provides in-kind transfers of equipment, tools, and/or raw materials and trainings to parents of child laborers in an effort to promote sustainable, alternative forms of income that replace the family’s use of child labor.

This study was conducted in five regions of the Philippine island of Luzon. Two of these regions, Bicol and Central Luzon, account for more than 1 in 5 of all child laborers in the Philippines. 2  Among the families in the study, 73 percent of children living in treated households were child laborers, and these families lived on less than $1.30 per person per day on average.

Details of the Intervention

Innovations for Poverty Action worked with researchers to test the impact of the KASAMA program on child labor, economic activity, household income, and consumption.

The program offered households a productive asset along with a short business training and was designed to support families in moving to more entrepreneurial activities and sustainable livelihoods. Potential beneficiaries were drawn from existing government lists of vulnerable families with children and families with child laborers.

One-hundred and sixty-four communities (barangays) across five regions of Luzon were randomly assigned to one of two groups:

• Program group:   Households in 82 communities could access an asset such as livestock, farming tools, inventory for vending snacks, or materials for producing home goods (such as candles or curtains) worth PHP10,000 (USD$518 Purchasing Power Parity). The program also included three one-day trainings designed to provide assistance on developing a business plan, bookkeeping, marketing and financial literacy. The training also included a brief orientation on child labor: how it is defined legally in the Philippines and how the government is engaging communities to reduce child labor.  Households were not told the program was designed to reduce child labor, however. (1,148 households)
• Comparison group: This group was comprised of 82 communities who did not receive the intervention. (1,148 households)

Researchers measured impacts of the program approximately 18 months after it started.

Results and Policy Lessons

Overall, households offered the program had better food security and improvements in some measures of child welfare (e.g., life satisfaction), but it also led to a modest increase in the number of children who worked. The increase in child labor appears to be driven by the increase in work opportunities brought on by the family businesses.

Livelihoods : Households assigned to receive the program were more likely to start new businesses and preserve existing businesses.

• Households offered the program were 9 percentage points more likely to report the presence of either an agricultural or non-agricultural family firm, an 11 percent increase over comparison households.
• These households reported 0.26 new non-farm enterprises over the study period (a 61 percent increase over the comparison group).  Overall, households offered the program have 0.36 more non-farm enterprises at follow-up compared to the comparison group.  Because this 0.36 is bigger than the number of new non-farm enterprises, we can infer that the program helped some existing enterprises survive.
• The most common assets transferred were for the creation or expansion of small convenience stores (“sari-sari ” stores ) .
• Flexibility in asset choice appeared important to beneficiaries according to qualitative interviews with frequent reports of experimentation in different enterprises to find what worked best for the household and some suggestion that the best asset for one household was not necessarily the best asset for another household, even in the same community.

Economic well-being:  Household food security improves:

• Adults and children less than age 14 report not having to cut meals, being able to eat preferred food options, and not needing to borrow food or purchase food on credit.

Child labor: There was no overall effect on primary or secondary measures of child labor.

• For children not involved in child labor at baseline, employment in family based economic activities increases by 10 percentage points, a 16 percent increase over the comparison group.  Economic activity rates increased for this group overall by 8.4 percentage points or 13 percent.
• For children already involved in child labor at baseline, the program seemed to have little effect on their time allocation.
• There is no evidence to suggest that increasing the value of the productive asset transfer would change the child labor findings, although that could be subject to further study.

Child welfare: Child welfare increased on average. 3  This appears to be driven largely by changes in life satisfaction and is concentrated among children already in child labor before the program started. These improvements in welfare for children who were laborers before the program began seems to again be due to improvements in life satisfaction. Children were more likely to report that they were thriving and had higher scores on the Student’s Life Satisfaction Survey. For children not in child labor before the program, the main outcome in which they show improvements in welfare is that they were less likely to report they were suffering. It is worth noting that children in homes that already had businesses before the program was offered did not experience these gains in child welfare and life satisfaction, which could be due to the increase in work in this group.

Policy Lessons

Overall, these findings raise questions about the value of providing a productive asset transfer to families in order to reduce child labor. Yet they also highlight the value of KASAMA in ameliorating poverty, increasing food security, and improving very poor children’s life satisfaction.

This highlights one of the important––and previously unknown–– tensions in using a sustainable livelihood program to combat child labor.  Families with child labor present are amongst the poorest and most disadvantaged, and livelihood support can make them less impoverished (as KASAMA has done).  However, when introducing a new enterprise into a household, available laborers are needed to work in the new enterprise.  In this context, there was not a large surplus of prime-age adult labor.  Poor families were working hard to make ends meet, so the addition of a new economic activity or expanding an existing activity brought in more marginal workers, which were often children and the aged (unreported above, elder women increased their economic activity by 48 percent from being offered the program).  Thus, it is critical to be clear on the goals of a sustainable livelihood program.  If the goal is to improve the lives of families with child labor, then KASAMA was an impressive success. However, if the goal was to eliminate child labor in beneficiary families, then the program was not successful in reaching that goal and other approaches should be considered and tested.

Funding for this project was provided by the United States Department of Labor.

This material does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the United States Department of Labor, nor does the mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations imply endorsement by the United States Government.

[1] “Philippines - 2011 Survey on Children 5 to 17 Years Old - Final Report,” Report, February 1, 2014. p. 8  http://www.ilo.org/ipec/Informationresources/WCMS_IPEC_PUB_26815/lang--en/index.htm.

[2] “Philippines - 2011 Survey on Children 5 to 17 Years Old - Final Report,” p. 56.

[3] The primary life satisfaction metric is Cantril’s (1965) Ladder which researchers collected for each child 10-17 in the household. The respondent provided a scaled response of their life quality ranging between 0 to 10, and researchers examine the impact of KASAMA on the child’s raw score and on indicators consistent with how the Gallop Organization uses Cantril’s Ladder, creating indicators by splitting the responses into thriving (7+) and suffering (4-).

Child Labor in the Philippines

PHILIPPINES – A child miner pulls an improvised cart made from a gasoline container carrying heavy rocks. Child laborers in mines are at risk of severe injury and death, and face long-term health problems caused by back-breaking labor, constant exposure to dust and chemicals, and most of all mercury poisoning.

Child labor persists side by side with chronic poverty in the Philippines. While programs to address child labor by the government, international agencies and civil society groups are in place, child labor is still worsening. Based on the latest official count as of 2011, there are 3.2 million child laborers who are mostly in hazardous work, out of the 5.5 million children at work.[1]

The problem of child labor lies deeply in the structural problems of the society, heavily connected to deeply rooted poverty and continuous non-inclusive growth in the economy. Other push factors of child labor include land-grabbing, low family income, lack of regular and decent jobs with living wages for parents, and low awareness on rights of children among poor families. This is aggravated as businesses and companies continue to exploit child laborers through lower wages, lack of benefits and protection, and weak government mechanisms and instruments to combat the employment of children. Child laborers are forced to leave their formal education and focus on their work, leaving them more vulnerable to abuses, violations and little chance and opportunity to have a better future.

BUKIDNON – People in Don Carlos, Bukidnon depend mainly on agriculture and plantation work. Child laborers in sugarcane estates work in weeding, harvesting and fetching of water.

The number of children working in hazardous industries stands at 2.99 million (2011), an increase from 2.2 million in 1995. Child labor is prevalent in rural areas, particularly in mining sites and in agricultural plantations (sugarcane, banana, palm oil). A study conducted by EILER indicates that child labor in the country has worsened as reflected in:

Longer working hours of children, multiple jobs juggled by child laborers, and exposure to social hazards (such as use of illegal drugs) and occupational health and safety hazards.

One out of five households surveyed for the study showed incidence of child labor.

High tendency for child laborers to stop schooling. Child laborers normally work for an average of ten hours daily for a tiny fraction of the prevailing minimum wage and extreme cases of 24-hour shift in mining, even as the magnitude of their work is comparable to those of adults.

Ninety-six percent (96%) of households surveyed were living below the poverty thresholds of their region and have an average monthly family income of P1,000 – P3,000 (highest incidence of child labor at 40%).

Seventy-seven percent (77%) of households surveyed do not own land and has no accessibility to land.

The children and their families have no means to escape the vicious cycle of generational poverty as child laborers work the same kind of low-income, labor-intensive jobs and generate just enough income to eat and work the next day. Unable to finish basic education, they are unable to apply to stable work which demands technical skills they do not have.

Children working in hazardous industries are exposed to the dangers and perils of heavy physical work, exposure to chemicals and unsafe working conditions. At their tender age, these children are deprived of their right to education, right against economic exploitation and right to have everything they need to have a better future.

DAVAO DEL NORTE – Child laborers in banana plantations often serve as fruiters, harvesters, haulers, loaders, and uprooters. Over time, the children have sustained injuries from weeding, harvesting, bagging and de-leafing work.

End poverty. End child labor.

November 20, 2014 marked the 25th year since the U.N. General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of Child (CRC). Throughout the years, there have been significant achievements on upholding the rights of children worldwide, but much has to be done to address the root causes of child labour and build actions to end its worst forms.

The Ecumenical Institute for Labor Education and Research (EILER) with support from the European Union under the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) implemented “Bata Balik-Eskwela: Community-based Approach in Combating Child Labor in Hazardous Industries in Mining and Plantations” from 2013 to 2016 to help curb child labor in Caraga Region, Bukidnon, Camarines Norte, Davao Del Norte, Compostela Valley and Negros Occidental through education and building community-based support network for child laborers and their families.

Read  Bittersweet: Combatting Child Labour on the Sugarcane Plantations in the Philippines   from the European Commission website.

Watch  “Dula-anan” (2016) video documentary on the campaign to end child labor and the Bata Balik-Eskwela Program.

COMPOSTELA VALLEY – Beneficiaries of Bata Balik-Eskwela Program in Southeastern region of the Philippines start their graduation ceremony at the open court of their rural community (on top of Mt. Diwalwal) with a prayer.

The project aimed to reintegrate child laborers to formal education through the establishment of Learning Centers, creation of a community-based support system and advocating children’s rights. It had three (3) components namely Bata Balik-Eskwela Program (BBEP), Community-based Support Network Program (CBSP) and Public Awareness and Advocacy Program (PAAP).

Through the project and in cooperation with the Center for Trade Union and Human Rights , Institute for Occupational Health and Safety Development , Rural Missionaries of the Philippines Northern Mindanao Sub-region , and community organizations, six (6) Learning Centers were established to provide appropriate curriculum and school materials to the beneficiaries. At the end of the project, a total of 618 children enrolled in five (5) batches at each learning center and 518 of them completed the program.

[1] 2011 Survey on Children, National Statistics Office. http://web0.psa.gov.ph/content/number-working-children-5-17-years-old-estimated-55-million-preliminary-results-2011-survey

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