Child Labor in the History of Latin America
Conference on Latin American History 46
Labor and Working Class History Association 4
Session Abstract
Child Labor in the History of Latin America
Historically child labor in non-elite families was a normal and expected part of life and education in Latin America. In Latin America, the concept of child and adolescent labor includes a broad range of activities that have had varying meanings since the time of conquest. The concept of childhood itself has been historically variable. Children and adolescents under age 20 constituted from 30 to 50 percent of the population of Latin America in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and over 50 percent today. In poor free and slave families alike children were introduced to work from about the age of 5. They worked alongside their family members as small children and then began to work for other families or enterprises as soon as they were able. This was true in rural agricultural families, in mining communities, among artisanal communities, and in urban areas. Members of the working poor frequently depended upon children’s labor as a part of family income. Control of child's labor could be an important resource, therefore, for parents, for extended families, and for landowners and urban employers. Consequently, as slavery ended in Latin America, parents often found themselves struggling to prohibit local elites from coercing labor from their children. Elites also struggled between themselves over child labor. This panel addresses the experience of child labor in Latin America including struggles over the control of children in Brazil and the subjective experience of being a child laborer in Mexico.