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

In 2024, a United Nations report estimated that 138 million children worldwide are engaged in child labor. This figure represents about 8% of all children aged 5 to 17. To put this into perspective, 138 million children would fill approximately 2 million school buses. The Sustainable Development Goals aimed to eliminate all forms of child labor by 2025, but this target was not met. The term child labor refers to work done by children that is likely to harm their health, safety, or moral development, or interfere with their schooling. This definition has evolved over more than a century through international legal conventions, starting with early agreements in the early 20th century.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) and the United Nations use specific rules to measure child labor, based on three factors: the child’s age, the hours worked per week, and the type of work. Hazardous work, which includes dangerous industries or occupations or working 43 or more hours per week, is always counted as child labor, regardless of the child’s age. For non-hazardous work, age thresholds apply: children under 12 cannot perform any economic activity, even for one hour per week; children aged 12 to 14 can work up to 14 hours per week; and children aged 15 or older face no restrictions under this definition. Economic activity includes employment or producing goods, but chores like cooking or childcare in a child’s own home are excluded.

The 138 million children in child labor are divided into two main categories: hazardous work and non-hazardous work. Hazardous work involves 54 million children, or 3% of all children aged 5 to 17. This includes work in dangerous industries or occupations, or work exceeding 43 hours per week. Non-hazardous work accounts for the remaining 84 million children and often involves children who are too young or working too many hours. The harm in these cases is not necessarily the work itself but what it displaces, such as schooling, rest, play, or socializing. For example, an 11-year-old helping on a family farm for a few hours daily falls under this category.

Nearly 60% of child labor cases worldwide occur in agriculture, often on family farms or smallholder farms in sub-Saharan Africa. This work is common because many families rely on it for subsistence. Under UN definitions, any work done by children under 12 in agriculture is counted as child labor, even if it is light and non-hazardous, because it displaces time for education and play. If the same child works 43 or more hours per week, the work is classified as hazardous. This highlights how poverty and agricultural productivity are closely linked to child labor in these regions.

The UN’s definition of child labor excludes chores performed in a child’s own home, such as cooking or childcare, even if these tasks take significant time. This exclusion is based on the distinction between economic activity (employment or producing goods) and domestic work. As a result, girls, who often perform more household chores, are underrepresented in these statistics. For example, a girl spending the same number of hours caring for siblings at home as a boy spends feeding animals on a farm would not be counted as engaged in child labor under this definition.

The 138 million figure does not include cases of forced labor, trafficking, or other extreme forms of exploitation, as these are difficult to measure through household surveys. These issues fall outside the scope of the UN’s statistical definition, which relies on data collected from households. This means the actual number of children experiencing severe forms of child labor is likely higher than 138 million, but the extent of the problem remains unclear due to measurement limitations. Organizations like the ILO and UNICEF acknowledge this gap in their estimates.