138 million children are in child labor. What does this actually mean?

138 million children in the world are in child labor: that was the headline estimate in a report from the United Nations last year.

全球有 1.38 亿儿童处于童工状态：这是联合国去年一份报告的主要估计。

To put this in perspective, that’s enough children to fill around 2 million school buses.

从长远来看，这些孩子足以装满大约 200 万辆校车。

In the Sustainable Development Goals, the world had signed on to the target of “ ending child labor in all its forms by 2025 ”.

在可持续发展目标中，世界签署了“到2025年消除一切形式的童工”的目标。

Clearly, we have missed this by a huge margin.

显然，我们已经远远错过了这一点。

This situation is awful, and it deserves attention.

这种情况很糟糕，值得引起重视。

But to make sense of the scale of the problem, and how to address it, we need to understand what this number actually captures.

但为了了解问题的严重程度以及如何解决它，我们需要了解这个数字实际上反映了什么。

That starts with a seemingly simple question: what exactly counts as child labor?

首先是一个看似简单的问题：到底什么才算是童工？

Governments have been debating that question for well over a century.

一个多世纪以来，各国政府一直在争论这个问题。

In its simplest definition, child labor is work that is done by a child and is likely to be harmful.

从最简单的定义来看，童工是由儿童完成的、可能有害的工作。

This general principle was first codified in international legal conventions more than a century ago, and a series of them in the 20th century made its scope more precise, linking harms to work that endangers children’s “health, safety, or morals” or work that interferes with their schooling.

这一一般原则在一个多世纪前首次被编入国际法律公约，二十世纪的一系列公约使其范围更加明确，将危害与危害儿童“健康、安全或道德”的工作或干扰儿童学业的工作联系起来。

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In practice, though, these conventions were too general, and turning them into something measurable raised a whole set of questions.

但在实践中，这些约定过于笼统，将它们变成可衡量的东西会引发一系列问题。

Some amount of light, non-hazardous work is probably harmless at some ages.

在某些年龄段，一定量的轻量、无危险的工作可能是无害的。

A 15-year-old working a short weekend shift in a café is not the same as a 6-year-old doing the same work.

一个 15 岁的孩子在咖啡馆做周末短班工作与一个 6 岁的孩子做同样的工作是不一样的。

Nor is working a few hours a week the same as working 12 hours a day.

每周工作几个小时与每天工作 12 小时并不相同。

So, what thresholds should we use for age and hours of work in these cases?

那么，在这些情况下，我们应该使用什么年龄和工作时间阈值呢？

In 2008, the International Conference of Labour Statisticians (ICLS) agreed on answers to these measurement questions, adopting a resolution with specific rules based on three things: the child’s age, the hours they work, and the nature of the job.

2008年，国际劳工统计学家会议（ICLS）就这些衡量问题的答案达成了一致，通过了一项决议，其中包含基于三件事的具体规则：孩子的年龄、工作时间和工作性质。

The rules adopted by the UN for measurement, building on the ICLS resolution, are the following:

联合国在 ICLS 决议的基础上采用的衡量规则如下：

Applying these rules to household survey data gives the headline estimate: in 2024, 138 million children were in child labor.

将这些规则应用于家庭调查数据可得出总体估计：2024 年，有 1.38 亿儿童成为童工。

That’s about 8% of all children aged 5 to 17.

这大约占所有 5 至 17 岁儿童的 8%。

That’s what I show in this diagram, where I’ve also broken the figure into the corresponding conditions that apply in each case.

这就是我在这张图中显示的内容，我还将该图分解为适用于每种情况的相应条件。

From the breakdown, we see that under the UN definitions, 54 million children are in hazardous work (which, under this framework, means work in dangerous industries or occupations, or very long hours).

从细分中，我们看到，根据联合国的定义，有 5400 万儿童从事危险工作（在此框架下，这意味着在危险行业或职业中工作，或者工作时间很长）。

That’s 3% of all children globally.

这占全球儿童总数的 3%。

In addition to this, 84 million children are in non-hazardous jobs that count as child labor, mainly because the children are too young to be doing them, or are doing them for too many hours.

除此之外，还有 8400 万儿童从事被视为童工的非危险工作，主要是因为孩子们太小而无法从事这些工作，或者从事这些工作的时间太长。

Here, the harm lies less in the work itself than in what it may displace: schooling and the time a child should have for rest and play.

在这里，危害不在于工作本身，而在于它可能取代的东西：学校教育以及孩子应该休息和玩耍的时间。

The estimates above include what most people intuitively associate with child labor: children in dangerous conditions, working long hours in factories or construction sites.

上述估计包括大多数人直观上与童工相关的内容：处于危险条件下的儿童​​、在工厂或建筑工地长时间工作的儿童。

This falls under the “hazardous work” category.

这属于“危险工作”类别。

But as the diagram shows, this is only one part of the picture.

但如图所示，这只是图片的一部分。

Let’s consider some other types of work and how they fit into the definitions.

让我们考虑一些其他类型的工作以及它们如何符合定义。

Close to half of all child labor under these definitions corresponds to non-hazardous work done by children under 12.

根据这些定义，近一半的童工属于 12 岁以下儿童从事的非危险工作。

Much of this happens in agricultural settings, where any work done by children under 12 is counted as child labor, even if it is light and non-hazardous.

其中大部分发生在农业环境中，12 岁以下儿童所做的任何工作都被视为童工，即使是轻量且无危险的工作。

Imagine an 11-year-old helping on a family farm in sub-Saharan Africa.

想象一下，一名 11 岁的孩子在撒哈拉以南非洲的一个家庭农场帮忙。

He feeds the animals every day, a couple of hours in the morning and again in the afternoon.

他每天都给动物喂食，早上几个小时，下午再喂一次。

Work like this is extremely common.

像这样的工作非常常见。

Around 6 in 10 children in child labor worldwide are working on farms or in other agricultural activities, most of it as part of family subsistence and on smallholder farms.

全球大约十分之六的童工儿童在农场或其他农业活动中工作，其中大部分是家庭生计的一部分，并且在小农农场工作。

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As I mentioned above, the reason this type of work counts as child labor under the international conventions is that it’s considered to be harmful because of what it displaces: the children’s time for studying, resting, playing, and socializing.

正如我上面提到的，根据国际公约，此类工作被视为童工的原因是，它被认为是有害的，因为它取代了孩子们学习、休息、玩耍和社交的时间。

When we hear the term “hazardous work”, it’s natural to picture work that’s physically dangerous.

当我们听到“危险工作”这个词时，很自然地会想到对身体有危险的工作。

That’s covered, but hazardous work also includes non-dangerous work that is included purely because of the number of hours.

这包括在内，但危险工作还包括纯粹因为工作时间而包含在内的非危险工作。

Remember, 43 hours or more per week of any kind of work counts as hazardous.

请记住，每周从事任何类型的工作 43 小时或以上都属于危险工作。

So, going back to the previous example of a child helping on a family farm: if this child’s work adds up to 43 hours or more across the week (around six hours a day for seven days a week), he is classified as being in hazardous work under the statistical definition, counted alongside children in physically dangerous occupations like construction and mining.

因此，回到之前在家庭农场帮忙的孩子的例子：如果这个孩子每周的工作时间总计达到 43 小时或以上（每周 7 天，每天大约 6 小时），那么根据统计定义，他就被归类为危险工作，与从事建筑和采矿等身体危险职业的儿童一起计算在内。

The measurement rules adopted by the UN exclude work related to chores in a child’s own home, like cooking or childcare.

联合国采用的衡量规则排除了与儿童自己家里的家务相关的工作，例如做饭或照顾孩子。

This is built into the definition: only an economic activity, meaning employment or the production of goods, counts as work for these purposes.

这是定义中的：只有经济活动，即就业或商品生产，才算作用于这些目的的工作。

This is an important exclusion because a child could spend the same number of hours taking care of her siblings and cleaning at home as another child the same age spends feeding animals on a farm, and only the latter counts as child labor under these definitions.

这是一个重要的排除，因为一个孩子在家里照顾兄弟姐妹和打扫卫生的时间可能与另一个同龄的孩子在农场喂养动物的时间相同，而根据这些定义，只有后者才算童工。

This asymmetry affects the gender composition of the figures, as girls tend to do more of the household work that these definitions exclude.

这种不对称性影响了数字的性别构成，因为女孩往往承担更多这些定义排除的家务劳动。

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Some of the worst forms of child labor, such as trafficking and forced labor, are not counted in these estimates because they fall outside what household surveys can measure.

一些最恶劣形式的童工，例如贩运和强迫劳动，没有计算在这些估计中，因为它们不属于家庭调查可以衡量的范围。

This is a measurement limitation, rather than a conceptual exclusion.

这是一种测量限制，而不是概念上的排除。

It’s a terrible problem over which we have limited visibility.

这是一个可怕的问题，我们对此的了解有限。

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We send two regular newsletters so you can stay up to date on our work and receive curated highlights from across Our World in Data.

我们定期发送两份时事通讯，以便您及时了解我们的工作并接收来自“我们的数据世界”的精选亮点。

The umbrella of “child labor” covers many different situations.

“童工”的保护伞涵盖了许多不同的情况。

It spans children working in exploitative and dangerous conditions, as well as children who are counted not because of the conditions they work in, but because they are too young to be working at all, even if that means helping on a family farm for only a few hours a day.

它涵盖了在受剥削和危险条件下工作的儿童，以及不是因为工作条件而是因为他们太小而根本无法工作的儿童，即使这意味着每天只能在家庭农场帮忙几个小时。

Once we see these differences, it becomes clear that child labor statistics capture a range of situations, and dealing with them calls for different kinds of responses.

一旦我们看到这些差异，就会清楚童工统计数据涵盖了一系列情况，而处理这些情况需要采取不同的应对措施。

This is worth keeping in mind when reading a target like the Sustainable Development Goal of ending child labor “in all its forms”.

在阅读诸如终止“一切形式”童工的可持续发展目标之类的目标时，值得牢记这一点。

Those forms are very different, and much of what the numbers count is driven by conditions that have little to do with work itself.

这些形式非常不同，而且大部分数字是由与工作本身无关的条件驱动的。

As we saw, a large share of this work happens on family farms.

正如我们所看到的，这项工作的很大一部分发生在家庭农场。

Agricultural productivity, and its link to poverty, is worth emphasizing here because it is not usually thought of as a question about child labor, but it has large consequences for children.

农业生产力及其与贫困的联系在这里值得强调，因为它通常不被认为是关于童工的问题，但它对儿童产生了巨大的影响。

We have written about why raising agricultural productivity in sub-Saharan Africa is one of the most important problems of this century, and it is closely connected to this one.

我们已经写过为什么提高撒哈拉以南非洲的农业生产力是本世纪最重要的问题之一，并且它与这一问题密切相关。

In the coming months, I will write more about this topic and update many of our charts with some of my colleagues.

在接下来的几个月中，我将撰写更多有关此主题的文章，并与我的一些同事一起更新我们的许多图表。

If you would like to hear about our upcoming work on child labor as it is published, you can subscribe to our newsletter .

如果您想了解我们即将发布的关于童工问题的工作，您可以订阅我们的时事通讯。

I thank Bertha Rohenkohl, Pablo Arriagada, Hannah Ritchie, and Max Roser for their comments on this article.

我感谢 Bertha Rohenkohl、Pablo Arriagada、Hannah Ritchie 和 Max Roser 对本文的评论。

The world has made a lot of progress in recent generations, but millions of children are still not in school.

近几代人以来，世界取得了很大进步，但仍有数百万儿童失学。

The world needs ideas and innovation to make progress.

世界需要思想和创新才能取得进步。

Creative and talented people are everywhere, but the opportunity to develop is limited to only a small number of well-off children.

有创造力、有才华的人比比皆是，但发展的机会却仅限于少数富裕家庭的孩子。

The world loses out as a result.

结果世界输了。

For billions, it can mean hours spent collecting water.

对于数十亿人来说，这可能意味着要花费数小时取水。

For almost a million, it means dying from disease.

对于近百万人来说，这意味着死于疾病。

The regulation of children’s work was on the agenda of the first International Labour Conference of the ILO in 1919, under the label “Employment of children”.

1919 年，对儿童工作的监管被列入国际劳工组织第一届国际劳工大会的议程，主题是“儿童就业”。

It covered three issues: the minimum age of employment, work at night, and work in unhealthy conditions.

它涵盖三个问题：最低就业年龄、夜间工作和在不健康条件下工作。

You can read more about this history in the 2019 report “Tackling child labour: 100 years of action”

您可以在 2019 年报告“解决童工问题：100 年的行动”中详细了解这段历史

The 43-hour threshold chosen by the International Conference of Labour Statisticians aligns with the standard full-time working week for adults (around 40 to 44 hours under most national laws).

国际劳工统计学家会议选择的 43 小时阈值与成人标准全职工作周一致（大多数国家法律规定约为 40 至 44 小时）。

Long hours are, in general, recognized as a form of harmful work in international conventions; the 43-hour threshold is how that principle is turned into something measurable from survey data.

一般来说，国际公约将长时间工作视为一种有害工作形式； 43 小时的门槛是如何将这一原则转化为可通过调查数据衡量的东西。

It’s not a statement that this exact number of hours is intrinsically dangerous.

这并不是说这个确切的小时数本质上是危险的。

Some of these children combine agricultural work with school, but many of them don’t.

其中一些孩子将务农和上学结合起来，但许多人则不然。

Child labor often means children leave school early or never enter school in the first place.

童工通常意味着儿童提前离开学校或根本就不上学。

We cover the link between child labor and education on our topic page .

我们在主题页面上介绍了童工与教育之间的联系。

The UN also published estimates under a broader definition of child labor, which includes domestic work of 21 hours or more per week for children aged 5 to 14.

联合国还公布了对童工更广泛定义的估计，其中包括 5 至 14 岁儿童每周从事 21 小时或以上的家务劳动。

These estimates show a different picture : the gender gap in child labor reverses once these chores are counted, with girls slightly more likely than boys to be affected.

这些估计显示了不同的情况：一旦将这些家务活计算在内，童工的性别差距就会逆转，女孩受到影响的可能性略高于男孩。

You can read more about forced labor and how it affects children in the Global Estimates of Modern Slavery , but do bear in mind that the data sources and definitions in that context differ from those we discuss in this article.

您可以在《现代奴隶制的全球估计》中阅读有关强迫劳动及其如何影响儿童的更多信息，但请记住，该上下文中的数据源和定义与我们在本文中讨论的数据源和定义不同。

Our articles and data visualizations rely on work from many different people and organizations.

我们的文章和数据可视化依赖于许多不同的人和组织的工作。

When citing this article, please also cite the underlying data sources.

引用本文时，请同时注明底层数据来源。

This article can be cited as:

这篇文章可以引用为：

We are a live site and we keep our work maintained.

我们是一个活跃的网站，我们会保持我们的工作。

So our articles are often changed, including the data.

所以我们的文章经常改，包括数据。

You can browse previous versions of this work here.

您可以在此处浏览此作品的先前版本。