Essay Sample on Child Labour and The Industrial Revolution

The industrial revolution was a pivotal point in the development of the modern world, resulting in many monumental creations and influences, as well as many unfavourable elements that still have negative impacts on the world today. One of the negative aspects of the industrial revolution was the use of child labour to increase production and reduce cost of workers. Child labour is still an offence that is found worldwide, often in low socioeconomic environments, where the children are needed to work to provide an income for the family, such places that this has been seen recently are Nepal and Bangladesh. Child labour is something that came to be in a worldwide sense due to the industrial revolution and the demand for workers that could be paid less. Some employers were especially looking for children due to their size, which was useful for tasks such as mill work, and coal mining. Child labour as a result of the industrial revolution is extremely important due to the impact that it has on the youth of the world and the amount of people that are still impacted today.

In 1833, the 1833 factory act was put into place in Britain that which to protect children from extreme working conditions. The act included that: no children under the age of 9 were permitted to work, children aged up to 13 were not permitted to work over 9 hours a day, children aged from 13-18 could work up to 12 hours a day. We can tell from source 2, a factory report, that these laws were not always followed. We can also see that there were people who conducted inspections of factories on behalf of the government as an attempt to identify employers who violate the factory act. ‘I should certainly punish it with all severity in my power’ shows that there were punishments given to those who disobeyed the act. This has led to the implication of more child labour laws throughout the decades, and while there can still legally be children in the workforce in Australia, there are many laws making it very difficult for children under the age of 15 to work. These laws have been impacted by the industrial revolution, as before, there was no need for children to work anywhere outside of farming environments or family run enterprises. 

Many countries have very few child labour laws. The International journal of sociology and social policy states that 41 countries do not protect children and youth under the age of 18 from performing hazardous work. According to UNICEF, roughly 160 million children were subjected to child labour at the beginning of 2020, this is almost 1 in 10 children worldwide. Child labour can result in extreme injury and death. The industrial revolution has impacted child labour in many ways, the use of heavy machinery has increased the risk of bodily harm and injury. This is not to say that without the industrial revolution, there would be no child labour, but it has had a major impact on the amount and the danger of the labour that children are subjected to in society today.

The impact of child labour due to the industrial revolution is still very prominent in many areas of today’s society and has been for hundreds of years. In source 1, there are two children working. One pushing a cart or ‘truck’ and a ‘trapper’ opening the door to grant passage to the traffic of the carts. The child on the right appears to be miserable, having to repeat a monotonous task over and over with no source of entertainment or any engaging activities. We can see in source number 1 that the children appear to be young, possibly 6- 10 years old. At this age a child is being shaped by the enrichment they received from those around them, a child working in the mines would have most likely received very little engagement or entertainment, resulting in the child possibly having issues later in life. This is still very relevant to today as child labour that may stunt aspects of a child’s life is still happening. 

The industrial revolution still has a heavy impact on the modern world, child labour being just one of many aspects that was and is still impacted by it. Without the industrial revolution, we would not have child labour in the way that we do today. Child labour has been impacted by so many factors throughout the years, the defining aspect being the industrial revolution. 1 in 10 children are still affected by child labour today, hundreds of years after it became prominent in society.