The distinction between adult wage-labour and juvenile wage-labour, and the subdivision of the latter into infant-labour, child-labour, and the labour of “young persons,” is not of importance in all departments of labour protection, but it is of the utmost importance in protection of employment, especially in prohibition of employment on the one hand, and restriction of employment on the other. This prohibition and restriction of juvenile employment does not apply to all industries, but only to certain branches of industry and kinds of work, and to specially dangerous occupations.
In order to determine exactly what is meant by infant-labour, child-labour, and the labour of “young persons,” we must consider the inferior limit of age below which there is a partial prohibition of employment, and the superior limit of age beyond which labour is treated as adult labour as regards protection, receiving none, or only a very limited measure of it. The inferior limit does not as yet coincide with the beginning of school duties, nor does the superior limit coincide with the attainment of majority as recognised by common law.
“Juvenile labour”—permitted but restricted—stands midway between infant-labour, altogether prohibited in some branches of industry, and adult labour, permitted and unrestricted, or only slightly restricted; and within the inferior and superior limits of age it is divided into child-labour and labour of “young persons.”
The industrial laws of northern and southern countries differ in the inferior limit of age which they assign to prohibited infant-labour, as distinguished from child-labour permitted but restricted. In Italy this limit has hitherto been fixed at the completion of the ninth year; in England and France (in textile, paper, and glass industries), in Denmark, Spain, Russia, and in most of the industrial States of the North American Union, at the completion of the tenth year; in Germany hitherto, and in France (in general factory-labour, in workshops, smelting-houses, and building-yards), in Austria, Sweden, Holland and Belgium (Act of 1889), at the completion of the twelfth year; in Germany it is fixed for the future at the completion of the thirteenth year, as it soon will be in France also, in all probability—and in Switzerland at the completion of the fourteenth year.
The proposal of Switzerland at the Berlin Conference to fix the general inferior limit of age at 14 years was not carried. It has hitherto been prevented in Germany by the fact that in Saxony and elsewhere school duties are not exacted to the full extent as late as the age of 14.
The Berlin Conference voted for fixing the limit at the completion of the twelfth year, while agreeing that the limit of 10 years might be fixed in southern countries in view of the early attainment of maturity in hot climates. The limit is fixed higher with regard to protection in certain specified dangerous or injurious occupations: for boys engaged in coal mines the limit of 14 years was laid down by the resolutions of the Berlin Conference.[7]
The superior limit of age of juvenile labour in factories is fixed at 14 years in southern countries (in those represented at the Berlin Conference); at 16 years in Germany, Austria, and France (in connection with the fixing of the maximum duration of labour); and at 18 in Great Britain, Switzerland, and Denmark, and probably soon in France. With respect to night work and dangerous work, the superior limit (especially for women) is placed still higher (21 years), wherever such work is not entirely prohibited.
All wage-workers between the inferior and superior limits of age at which employment is permitted, are called, as already stated, “juvenile workers.” In many countries a further division of juvenile labour is made, into children and “young persons.” In Germany, Austria, Sweden, and Denmark—and in future probably in all those countries represented at the Berlin Conference—this division falls at the age of 14, and in southern countries at the age of 12 years. “Children,” in the meaning attached to the word by labour-protective legislation, are children of 12 to 14 years (in Germany in future 13 to 14, in Great Britain hitherto 10 to 14); “young persons” are juvenile workers from 14 to 16 years, in England of 14 to 18 years. In Switzerland juvenile workers are “young persons” of 14 to 18 years, as none under the age of 14 are employed at all.
Male labour and female labour. Women for the purposes of Labour Protection include all female workers enjoying special or extended protection, not only on account of youth, but also from considerations arising out of their sex and family duties. It is important that we should be clear on this point, in view of the demand now made for careful restriction of the employment of married women in factories,—either for the entire duration of married life or until the youngest child has reached the age of 14,—for the entire prohibition of night labour for women, and of the employment of women in certain trades during the periods of lying-in and of pregnancy.
Just as female labour for our purpose does not mean the labour of all female persons, so male labour does not include all labour of male persons, but only of such male persons as have protection on grounds other than that of youth. Hitherto, male labour has only had practically a negative meaning in protective law, it has been used in the sense of the unprotected labour of adult men. The demand for a maximum working day for all male labourers—at least in factories—and the concession of this demand have given a positive signification to the term male labour, as affected by protective legislation.