Will child labour decrease as poor countries develop?
Not necessarily. Even when economic growth was high in the early and mid 1990s in some countries such as Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, child labour continued to increase. Real development can only occur when adults are at work and children are at school. Until then, a small minority of people will profit from child labour, but whole communities will be condemned to a cycle of poverty and underdevelopment and waste their most valuable resource for the future – a healthy and educated workforce. 10. Why is child labour getting worse in some countries? Poverty, the race to the bottom, structural adjustment programs, contracting out, technology, free trade zones and a growing informal economy – all these fundamentals of the new “global economy” have caused the increase in child labour. Anything that causes or sustains poverty encourages child labour. When a country has financial problems, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) moves in and usually demands the economy becomes “expo
