Benefits of eliminating child labour far outweigh costs, UN agency reports

The benefits of eliminating child labour would be seven times greater than the costs, according to a new United Nations International Labour Organization (ILO) report.

Forcing children to continue working - a practice that affects one out of every six youngsters, or 246 million children - will cost $5.1 trillion from now until 2020. But if they receive an education instead, that figure drops to just $760 million - an amount that is more than offset by other social gains, the ILO's International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) says in the study.

"What's good social policy is also good economic policy," said ILO Director-General Juan Somavia. "Eliminating child labour will yield an enormous return on investment - and a priceless impact on the lives of children and families."

The study, entitled Investing in Every Child: An Economic Study of the Costs and Benefits of Eliminating Child Labour, is the first integrated analysis of the worldwide economic costs and benefits of eliminating child labour.

All regions of the world would experience large net gains from stopping child labour, the study says, "although the costs would almost certainly exceed returns in the early years." Net economic flows would turn dramatically positive, however, as the effects of improved education and health take hold. By 2020, costs would be far outweighed by the returns, leaving total annual benefits of around $60 billion.

In North Africa and the Middle East, the benefits would be the highest relative to the costs - 8.4 to 1. In Asia, the ratio would be 7.2 to 1 and in the countries with economies in transition, 5.9 to 1. In sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America the ratio would be 5.2 to 1 and 5.3 to 1, respectively.

The worldwide net economic benefits of the hypothetical programme would amount to 22.2 per cent of annual gross national income, the report says.

"Reaping the economic value of expanded education depends on countries' ability to create new jobs, take advantage of higher levels of human capital and develop economic policies to stimulate growth," the report says. "Yet even if the effect of education on future earnings was halved to 5 per cent, the study estimates that global benefits would still exceed $2 trillion."