T2 lec7 child/youth full Feb27

Canada and the Developing World -A comparative frameworkThesis on children/youth:

Increasing global corporatization has integrated children/ youth in the Core and Peripheral countries into the global commodity chain. Child/youth in the Core have been transformed into conspicuous consumers or service sector commodities; and in the Periphery, child/youth in mid- & richer-classes into comprador consumers and poorer, working class into labour commodities.Most children/youth in the Core help extract a major share of surpluses (corporate profits) through their consumption, within a stable political economy.In contrast, the labour of the Peripheries’ children/youth is exploited through poorly paid or unpaid household work. This surplus is transferred to the Core as profit.

GCC extracts surplus value from the children/ youth in the Core and Peripheral countries. The peripheries’ children/youth differ from the Canadian children/youth as the former live in poorer political economy whereas the latter live in an affluent one. Also, their conditions are different depending on where they are located in the GCC.

Periphery:• Child poverty Canada (semi-periphery but its economy resembles the Core) • Endless consumption

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Number of children in the world 2.2 billionNumber in poverty 1 billion (every second child)http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats

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Children/ youth in the Core and Peripheral countries:• Who are they?

• Canada• Peripheral countries

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Child/youth Poverty in Peripheral countries:International Labor Organization (ILO) reports:2010 Global total of Children (age 5-17): 1.586 billion20 mil. more than in 2004 (1.3% increase) In the Developing World (2010):Working children. (age 5 - 17): 306 mil.Child labour (5-17): 215 million

ILO defines Child labourers are as those:• Under the minimum age for work, or• Engaged in work that poses a threat to their health, safety or morals, or are subject to conditions

of forced labour

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Children in hazardous work: 115 million 2004 - 2010: 20% Increase in child labour in the 15-17 years age group: (from 52 million to 62 million)

Source: http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_126685.pdf

Core country’s children/youth: Most are higher or middle income classes (80% all children in Canada):

• Children at school• Youth at school/work

Consumers: Conspicuous ConsumptionWST concepts that explain reasons for the increase child poverty in Core and in Peripheries:

Declining role of the StateFinancial Meltdown (2008) Global Commodity Chain

Declining role of the State• Economic Deregulation• Dismantling of Social Welfare• Privatization of child care• Weakening of social policy towards children• State is unable to compensate the impact on child poverty generated by the financial shocks

Core: Child/youth are transformed into:• Conspicuous consumers (endless consumption)• Service sector commodities

Conspicuous consumers

• Creation of artificial wants

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• Persuaded to consume endlessly• Ads & Peer pressure lure the young

Core’s Child/ Youth conspicuous consumption: manufactured and manipulated by:• Adult-led army of advertisers• Marketing consultants • Youth researchers

Core: Service sector commodities:youth work is:

• Low-end service work • Low in status, value and skill • Not “real” work• Corporations view youth work as hobby

Consumerism - Commodification Link:• Circularity in youth employment

Service sector employers:• Hire young workers because ‘youth’ sells product • Youth/child often is the real product being sold, e.g.: Ads of child/youth in jeans or t-shirts,

sneakers or snowboards, soft drinks or CDs • Youth as consumers

e.g.: Retail and food service companies:• Exploit the sexuality of young workers (esp. women) to attract customers and increase sales• Staff stores by hiring youth as workers with the right “look” • Hire by screening for an appearance, attitude and demeanor based on age, gender, race and class

The company hires “brand representatives”:• Not cashiers or clerks • Exhibiting the “A&F Look” (to experience Abercrombie & Fitch stores)• Selling an experience for customer to experience again and again through the Brand

Commodification of Youth Youth workers:

• wear brand name perfumes as directed. But, in Starbucks: no colognes and perfumes – only the “romance of coffee” aroma

• Faces freshly scrubbed with Body Shop Blue Corn Mask 8

• Apartments furnished with Ikea self-assembled bookcases and coffee tablesCircularity in youth employment:• MNCs created mass consumerism (in post-WW II era)• Commodification of youth in mass advertising

• Demand for youth as service sector workers• Canadian youth want stable economy: why? (Jobs (& MNC profits) will be stable)

Why Commodity Chains are created by global corporation? How does it work? • NDL: International division of labour (post colonial)• Endless accumulation: economic growth to maximize profits• Commodification of everything;• Global search for surplus extraction• Repeated cycles of innovation, change, and expansion

Globally Integrated conspicuous consumption• Kinko’s, Starbucks and Blockbuster clerks buy their uniforms of khakis and white or blue shirts

at the Gap• “Hi! Welcome to the Gap!” greeting cheer is fueled by Starbucks double espressos• Résumés that got them the jobs were designed at Kinko’s on friendly Macs, in 12-point

Helvetica on MS Word.

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Raw materials (mostly from peripheries):Rubber, leather and plastic

Extracted from places located in close proximityHousehold labour

WomenYouthChildren

In the Periphery, child/youth in mid- & richer-classes into comprador consumers and poorer, working class into labour commodities.Child/youth in the Periphery: Comprador consumers: are elites whose consumption patterns works against one’s own country’s interest in the service of a foreign corporation Non-indigenous:• comprador consumers (richer & middle classes)• Go-between in extracting corporate surplus Labour Commodities:• semi-proletariat (low income & poor classes) Indigenous child/youth: • Fourth World status: exclusion & neglect

Peripheral states:MNCs’ Subcontractors (owner class):

Upper income class (global Elite class)• luxury goods consumer household

Educated & skilled workers:Middle income class (White or Blue collar)

• Children & youth at school• Formal sector: Working men/women • Consumer household (beyond basic goods)

Peripheral states: Lower income and Poorer classes:

• Working Men• Working Children• Working youth• Working women

Fourth World: Indigenous population:

• Unemployed & discriminated men• Children exploited in boarding schools• Culturally alienated youth• Working and abused women •

Poverty in Peripheral countries … see, Map (2005) http://www.unicef.org/sowc05/english/map2.html

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INDIA (2004):

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• Conditions of ‘real’ poverty (worse than ‘monetary’ measure)– 26% of children are education poor; (cf. 52 % of adults)– 70% of children <13 years old are undernourished, 44% severely; – 7% of individuals aged 7 to 59 suffered from chronic illness.

hdr.undp.org/.../presentations/2004/topic_3/Approaches%20to%20Measuring%20poverty,%20Frances%20Stewart.ppt

PERU: (2004)• Condition of poverty (better than monetary measure)

– 7 % of children are education poor.(cf. 20 % of adults– 29 % of children < 5 years were undernourished. (10 % of adults were health poor).

hdr.undp.org/.../presentations/2004/topic_3/Approaches%20to%20Measuring%20poverty,%20Frances%20Stewart.ppt

http://www.hrw.org/children/labor.htm 2004Why is child labour bad for the children?

• Four-year-olds tied to rug looms to keep them from running away - Working at rug looms, for example, has left children disabled with eye damage, lung disease, stunted growth, and a susceptibility to arthritis as they grow older

• Work prevents the child from going to school• Work long hours, often in dangerous and unhealthy conditions, are exposed to lasting physical

and psychological harm• Children work for too many hours and too many days, for too little, or no pay• subject often to physical abuse• exposed to dangerous pesticides• work with dangerous tools• What did World Bank and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation do?

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• financing sericulture projects dependent on child labor• ( Human Rights Watch, 2004)• Children work for too many hours and too many days, for too little, or no pay• subject often to physical abuse• exposed to dangerous pesticides• work with dangerous tools• What did World Bank and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation do?• financing sericulture projects dependent on child labor( Source: Human Rights Watch, 2004)

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