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Child Workers, Globalization, and International Business Ethics: A Case Study in Brazil’s Export-Oriented Shoe Industry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

J. Lawrence French  and
Richard E. Wokutch
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Abstract:

Disputes regarding the ethics of work by children have intensified in recent years, with little resolution. The impasses stem from failure to recognize the diverse forms of child work and a lack of empirical research regarding its causes and consequences. We report on data gathered in Brazil’s export-oriented shoe industry, which is notorious for the employment of children. Central findings are: 1) the causes of child work have less to do with backwardness and more to do with how shoe workers are integrated into the global order; 2) local employers and children regard this work as benign, but the U.S. government sees it as hazardous to children and unfair to U.S. producers; 3) efforts to remove children from the shoe industry have been frustrated by local resistance and raise ethical questions; and 4) in certain circumstances, efforts to eliminate hazards from the workplace are morally superior to campaigns to remove child workers from employment.

Type
Articles
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 15 , Issue 4 , October 2005 , pp. 615 - 640
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 2005

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