"Child labour diminished—not as the result of legislation, but as the result of rising real wages brought about by a rising productivity of labour." #QotD
“The rise in the productivity of labour was also responsible for the progressive reduction in child labour. For as people’s real wages rose, another effect was that they could afford to keep their children home longer. Thus, child labour diminished—not as the result of legislation, but as the result of rising real wages brought about by a rising productivity of labour.
“Although the connection just made is actually very simple, it cannot receive enough stress or elaboration. With the exception of orphan children, those who decided whether or not children would work, and, if so, to what extent, were the children’s parents. As soon as parents began to decide that they no longer needed as much help from their children, because their own real wages were now higher, they began to keep their children home longer, and thus to reduce the amount of child labour.”
~ George Reisman, from his book Capitalism, p. 645
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Or..."The Great Depression left thousands of Americans without jobs, and led to sweeping reforms under Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal that focused on increasing federal oversight of the workplace and giving out-of-work adults jobs…thereby creating a powerful motive to remove children from the workforce.
Almost all of the codes developed under the National Industrial Recovery Act served to reduce child labor. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 set a national minimum wage for the first time and a maximum number of hour for workers in interstate commerce—and also placed limitations on child labor. In effect, the employment of children under sixteen years of age was prohibited in manufacturing and mining."
https://www.history.com/topics/industrial-revolution/child-labor
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