During the early 20th century, child labor was used extensively throughout the various coalfields of Japan, but due to concerns of public health and an increased risk of death in coal mines, child labor laws were passed. Even as these various labor laws were passed to regulate and prohibit children from working, statistics show that a large number of children were still working the coalmines. A mine in particular which failed to see child labor decrease was Chikuho, located on the northeastern tip of the Kyushu Island, as Chikuho consisted of many mining families who had their children help them with their work. Since the children from mining families were somewhat forced to work the mines with their family, scholars believed that the children were being exploited not only by employers looking for cheap wages, but by their parents as well to provide “extra” income for the family. Contrary to these beliefs, child labor was not forced on children, but expected of them because of Japanese, family values and the income brought in by them were used to provide for the basic needs of the family and not for “extra” income.
Whenever possible, child labor was not used and children were taken out of the workforce. The most effective way of removing children from the workforce in early 20th century Japan was the implementation of compulsory education. Sachiko Sone, in her article Exploitation or Expectation?, mentioned that “98 percent of children under fourteen years of age were attending school” (Sone, 38) after mandatory education was enforced. This would mean that parents were allowing their children to attend school and very few of them were working the coalfields. Sone also mentions though that “children were sometimes withdrawn from schools in times of need and sent out to work for cash” (Sone, 39), but the fact that the children were only used “in times of need” suggest that they were not being exploited for extra cash, but were needed and used to provide income for survival. In Chikuho, however, while the national average of children attending school was reported as 95 percent, the average number of children attending school in Chikuho was 53.4 percent (Sone, 42). After officials “provided parents with school fees and other expenses” the “attendance rate increased to 82.8 percent” (Sone, 42). This indicates that the reason for the small percentage of child labor was because of the low income of the families and not because the children were being exploited and taken advantage of as extra labor. If the family had been financially stable, children would not have been used in the coalfields and most likely would have attended school. For some families, a deeply rooted family tradition expected children to work and help support the family. The ie system, or thinking of the house and family first had been passed down since feudal Japan, thus it was a very important aspect of Japanese culture (Sone, 40).
In some cases, the children voluntarily lied about their age to employers in order to work and avoid being forced to attend school (Sone, 46). Another aspect of family tradition playing a role in child labor work was that first born sons were expected to help provide for the family and work alongside their father, which occurred quite frequently (Sone, 45). These child laborers were required since “the income of the father alone (was not enough to meet total family needs… in four cases out of seven” (Sone, 47). So although three out of seven families usually were able to allow their children to attend school and rely only on the income of the father alone, most families needed the extra help from their children. Whenever the extra income was provided for families meeting the total need, the money went to increasing the family’s quality of life which usually benefited the children as well (Sone, 35). In some cases, even when fees for school were provided for families, basic needs of the family were not being met and so they could not afford to let their children attend school. Along with financial woes and family traditions, the ease of children entering the workforce led to families depending on child workers. At times even lying about their age was not necessary to work since some families usually did not register their daughters because by registering them to the government, the family could decide to sell her legally to a brothel (Sone, 45).
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Since these daughters were not registered, they were not legally bound to attend school and so they were easily able to help their family and work in the coalfields. Even the employers were lenient as recruitment leaflets advertised that they wanted “a man with a wife and a child of the age of 12 or 13” (Sone, 44) hinting at the fact that children can possibly work there. In Chikuho, a variety of different reasons helped explain the existence of child labor as an expectation rather than exploitation. Financial issues and deep rooted traditional values tended to keep children working and prevent them from attending school. Almost never were children exploited to gain an extra income to supply a “father’s drinking or gambling habit” (Sone, 52) as quality of life, especially for those living in Chikuho, was not good enough to provide such luxuries. In most case, the children were forced to work to help families provide the bare minimum need of their family. Children were usually not exploited by the employers either since whenever children did work in coalfields, they were usually paid as a family, thus not subjected to a lower wage compared to other workers. From these reasons, once can clearly see that families using child labor had an evident need for such extra income and was not using it to better their own quality of life, but for bettering the quality of life of the entire family, including the children.
